


Hairline Fractures

by kaliawai512



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aborted Undertale Genocide Run, Angst, Brotherly Affection, Cinnamon Roll Papyrus, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nonbinary Frisk, Papyrus Has Issues, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Prejudice Against Monsters (Undertale), Sans Has Issues, Sans Has Night Terrors, Sans sort of remembers resets, Suicidal Thoughts, Undertale Neutral Route, Undertale Saves and Resets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-10-25 12:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10764687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaliawai512/pseuds/kaliawai512
Summary: The Barrier is broken. Monsters are free, and are slowly but surely integrating into a society that has changed a lot in their absence. The war is over. Everyone is struggling to settle in, but they are happy, as much as they can be.Except the one who isn’t.Good thing his brother is there be happy enough for both of them.… right?





	1. Injured

**Author's Note:**

> What’s this? An Undertale fic that _isn’t_ based on Handplates? What has my writing come to!
> 
> In all seriousness, though, even though this isn’t directly based on any of Zarla’s work, I still have to credit her influence in my characterization of Sans and Papyrus. I’ve said it before, but I probably would have fallen out of the fandom months ago if not for Zarla drawing me in with excellent skelebros comics. However, unlike Zarla’s comics, this story assumes that neither Sans nor Papyrus have real memories of resets. Sans has impressions of things that have happened, mostly through dreams, but he probably would have dismissed them if not for his physics research. 
> 
> Also, fair warning: this fic deals with depression. A lot. And I know you see this in countless notes in countless stories and blogs, but I’m serious: if you need someone to talk to, a stranger on the internet who you never have to talk to again if you don’t want, I’m here. Don’t want to comment publicly? Private message me on FanFiction.Net (same username). Because I’ve been there. Many, many times. And if I can help one person, even a little bit, it’d be worth it.
> 
> Trigger warnings throughout the whole story for depression, suicidal thoughts, temporary character death, non-explicit violence, and societal prejudice against a specific group.

Papyrus wasn’t home.

That was normal during the day now, even though Sans hadn’t gotten used to it. He still came back to the apartment between jobs and paused when he didn’t hear the clanging of pots and pans or the hum of the vacuum or his brother’s booming voice telling him to just pick up that darn sock already.

But his absence only made Sans more aware of exactly when he was meant to be home.

5:15. 5:20, if there was traffic. Papyrus worked close enough to walk, so he didn’t take the bus—at least that was the excuse he gave, instead of admitting that every time he got on the bus, humans moved to the other side. But walking just meant that he was more consistent in his travel time, and over the past month, five days a week, Papyrus always walked through the door somewhere within that five-minute window.

It was 5:43.

Sans had started pacing at 5:25, and now he wouldn’t have been surprised if his slippers had worn a groove in the old, stained carpet. His breaths trembled as he sucked them in and came out as ragged sighs, and his fingers dug so hard into his skull that he swore there would be marks later when he looked in the mirror.

Something had happened. Something had to have happened, Papyrus never went out after work, and even if he had, he would have _called._ He was insistent about that, he scolded Sans if he ever forgot and he would _never_ forget to do it himself. Call if you’re going to be late. Call if your plans change. Call to let your brother know that you’re alright.

If Papyrus hadn’t called …

He had to find him. He should have gone out twenty minutes ago, what was he thinking, this was his _brother,_ something had happened to him, maybe he was hurt, maybe he was a pile of dust blowing away in the wind, maybe Sans would never find out what had happened and he would spend the rest of his life hating himself because he hadn’t protected Papyrus and—

The lock clicked, and Sans spun around to face the door, body tense, one hand raised.

The door opened.

And Papyrus stepped inside, his backpack slung over his shoulder, the late afternoon sun shining behind him.

For a second, a split second, everything was okay. His brother was here, he was safe, he was _alive,_ he was back home where he belonged, and Sans felt all the tension built up in his body go lax, his legs so wobbly with relief that he almost collapsed right where he stood.

Then he looked closer.

At Papyrus’s work shirt, torn at the shoulder and the bottom hem, several of the buttons undone while Papyrus _always_ buttoned them up. At his pants, with a gaping hole in the knee.

At his left arm, cradled close to his torso, a crack running all the way from his elbow to his wrist.

When Sans’s eyes at last drifted up to his face, Papyrus was smiling.

“HELLO, SANS!” He pushed the door shut behind him. “DID YOU HAVE A NICE DAY?”

Without the glare of the sun, it was easier to see the crack. _Cracks,_ Sans corrected himself. There was one on his skull, just above his eyesocket, and one of the fingers on his right hand looked bent out of place.

And he was still smiling.

“... papyrus?” Sans breathed.

Papyrus tilted his head, browbone furrowed. “YES. WHO ELSE WOULD IT BE?”

Sans scanned Papyrus from head to toe, taking in every detail, his SOUL clenching further with each tiny scratch and tear he saw. His hands began to tremble.

“what … what happened to you?”

Papyrus paused, then looked down at himself, as if seeing the cracks in his bones and the tears in his clothes for the first time.

“OH.”

He met Sans’s eyes again. He managed a small smile, though Sans could see the distress lingering in his sockets.

“DON’T WORRY, THIS IS NOTHING!” he said, with a slight, humorless laugh. “I WAS JUST WALKING HOME AND I RAN INTO THIS GROUP OF HUMANS AND THEY LOOKED RATHER ANGRY WHEN THEY SAW ME SO I SAID HELLO AND INTRODUCED MYSELF, BECAUSE IT’S VERY IMPORTANT TO MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION, BUT THEY DIDN’T TELL ME THEIR NAMES AND I THOUGHT THAT WAS A LITTLE STRANGE, BUT THEN THEY TOOK OUT THESE LONG METAL BARS AND … WELL …”

He trailed off and looked to the side, even as Sans shifted closer. He could see the faint tremors in Papyrus’s hands. But before he could speak, Papyrus perked back up, smiling almost wide enough for Sans to believe he meant it.

“I’M OKAY, THOUGH! DON’T WORRY! THEY WERE JUST UPSET. I’M SURE THEY HAD A BAD DAY AND MAYBE THEY HAD NEVER MET A SKELETON BEFORE AND DIDN’T KNOW THAT WE DON’T REALLY LIKE TO BE HIT WITH METAL BARS! I TOLD THEM SEVERAL TIMES THAT I DIDN’T LIKE IT AND ASKED THEM TO STOP, AND IT TOOK THEM QUITE A WHILE, BUT FINALLY THEY UNDERSTOOD!”

He stopped again.

“WELL … PROBABLY,” he added. “THEY DIDN’T REALLY SAY ANYTHING, THEY JUST RAN OFF AND LEFT ME THERE.”

He said it like he might talk about Frisk putting both ketchup and mustard on their hotdog: odd, but not upsetting. But Sans could see the way the line of his mouth quivered, his sockets just a little wider than usual, his weight shifting from foot to foot as if he thought he might have to run.

He was afraid.

Papyrus was _afraid._

Someone had scared him, someone had _hurt_ him.

Sans didn’t notice Papyrus looking back to him until he took a step forward, his confusion, his distress, replaced by concern. His mouth curved into a frown, browbone tilted up in the center.

“SANS?” he asked. Sans didn’t reply, his breaths growing more ragged by the second. Papyrus took another step. “SANS, ARE YOU ALRIGHT? YOU LOOK VERY—”

Sans fell forward and threw his arms around his brother, squeezing as hard as he could, pressing his face into the fabric of Papyrus’s shirt. He could smell Italian food, tomatoes and fresh pasta. And sweat. Papyrus didn’t sweat. But those humans had.

They had been near his brother. They had _touched_ his brother. They had _hurt_ his brother.

They—

Papyrus’s arms wrapped around him in return, holding him even as Sans felt him shift to look him over.

“SANS? SANS, WHAT’S WRONG?” he asked, his voice tight in worry, worry for _him,_ why the hell would Papyrus be worried about _him_? “ I’M OKAY, SANS. THEY … THEY DIDN’T REALLY HURT ME! THEY COULD NEVER HURT THE GREAT PAPYRUS! NYEH HEH HEH! HEH …”

After half a minute of silence, Papyrus began to rub one hand very gently along Sans’s spine, up and down, like he had soothed him at his worst moments. At first Sans thought he was still shaking, until he realized that it was his own bones that had begun to rattle.

“SANS?”

Sans sucked in a hard breath through his teeth, fighting back a whimper. “i thought you … you could have …”

He shook his head and let go, stepping back, even though he didn’t want to, even though Papyrus tried to keep holding on. He wanted to stay there forever, close, safe, where nothing could ever hurt them. Either of them. Where he could feel his brother’s SOUL thrumming against his head, warm and alive, and he _knew_ that everything was alright.

But everything _wasn’t_ alright.

He looked back up and found Papyrus’s eyes locked on him, sockets soft, his browbone tilted up.

“NOTHING HAPPENED, SANS.”

Sans almost laughed, making a loose, harsh gesture from Papyrus’s head to his toes. “you call this NOTHING?”

Papyrus flinched, and Sans’s SOUL twinged. He never snapped. Not at Papyrus. But he could barely think, he couldn’t get the words out to apologize, all he wanted to do was find the humans who hurt his brother and—

“WELL … MAYBE NOT NOTHING, BUT IT’S NOT VERY BAD!” Papyrus went on, snapping Sans out of his thoughts before his eyesockets could go completely dark. He smiled wider. “I’LL BE ALL BETTER IN A DAY OR TWO! I JUST NEED—”

“what if they hadn’t stopped?” Sans murmured. He dropped his head to stare at the ground, his shoulders low but his whole body tense. “what if they kept hittin you? what if they …”

His breath caught in his throat, and the images flashed behind his sockets. He didn’t need to be there. He had seen enough humans. He had seen enough dust.

And even if it was only a vague, cloudy blur in the back of his head, he could still see Papyrus, body gone, nothing but a head, staring up at his attacker with something between sadness and hope.

Papyrus stepped closer, and Sans saw the tips of the black work shoes he wore instead of his favorite red boots.

“BUT THEY DIDN’T, SANS. THEY STOPPED.”

Sans’s head snapped up, his hands curling at his sides. “and what if it happens again? what if they DON’T stop?”

“IT’S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, SANS,” Papyrus replied, his browbone creased, so confused, so oblivious, so innocent and _god how the hell could anyone ever think of hurting him._ “WHY WOULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN?”

Sans’s smile had never felt so tight.

“because humans HATE us, bro! they don’t want us here and they think that means they can do whatever they want to us!”

Papyrus tensed, but a second later his face set and he stood up straighter than before.

“THAT’S NOT TRUE, SANS! MAYBE SOME OF THEM ARE LIKE THAT, BUT MOST OF THEM AREN’T! THERE ARE LOTS OF NICE PEOPLE AT THE RESTAURANT! AND WHEN I GO GROCERY SHOPPING, THE CASHIER ALWAYS SMILES AT ME AND THERE’S THIS OLD WOMAN WITH A LITTLE DOG I PASS BY EVERY DAY WHEN I GO TO WORK! AND FRISK, TOO! FRISK WOULD NEVER—”

“how do you know?!” Sans burst, in the closest to a shout that had ever come out of his mouth. His arms flew out to his sides. “maybe they WOULD! maybe they’d do a lot of things!”

Papyrus was staring at him now, sockets wide, not even speaking, but Sans couldn’t stop. He put his hands to his head and paced back and forth across the room, his breath coming in short huffs, his SOUL twisting with every step.

“and just cause you know a few nice humans doesn’t mean others wont hurt you! why’d you have to take that job anyway? you don’t even like it!”

“YES I DO!” Papyrus shouted back.

Sans spun around to face him. “no you don’t! they treat you different and you don’t get to cook like you wanted to and the customers are rude to you and—”

“I WANT THIS JOB, SANS!” Papyrus cut him off, and suddenly Sans looked at him, _really_ looked, and he saw the shine in his sockets, the tightness of his mouth, the way his hands curled into trembling fists. “MAYBE IT’S NOT PERFECT ALL THE TIME, BUT THERE ARE NICE PEOPLE THERE, TOO! AND IF I STAY THERE MAYBE I CAN WORK IN THE KITCHEN SOMEDAY! THEN I CAN LEARN TO COOK EVEN BETTER AND MAYBE I CAN START MY OWN RESTAURANT AND BE THE CHEF THERE! AND I WON’T KICK ANYONE OUT BECAUSE THEY’RE A MONSTER OR A HUMAN OR LOUD OR ANNOYING OR ANYTHING ELSE! AND EVERYONE WILL EAT LOTS AND LOTS OF AMAZING SPAGHETTI AND NO ONE WILL FIGHT EVER AGAIN!”

Sans deflated a little more with each word until he was almost limp.

He stared at his brother, his precious, beloved brother, who had gone through fifteen job interviews before finally finding a place that would take him. Who had worked extra hours his first week without overtime pay, just because his boss asked it, so he could “prove himself.” Who always found a smile for every customer, no matter how much they insulted him, even the one that threw their glass of wine in his face.

Who called to check up on his co-worker when she didn’t show up one day, and stayed on the phone for half an hour to listen to her tell him about her sick mom.

Who could list off fifteen positive qualities of his manager even though Sans couldn’t think of one.

Who came home with a smile on his face every day, ready to tell him how great work had gone, even when every other person Sans had met would have broken down under half the stress.

Because he was the Great Papyrus. That was what he did. Someone knocked him down and he bounced right back.

And suddenly that group of humans with their crowbars seemed a thousand miles away, and all that mattered was here and now. Papyrus, standing in front of him, face tight with determination, ready to fight the evils of the world with smiles and spaghetti. Only hoping that his brother would stand at his side.

Sans tucked the rest of his anger, his horror, his terror and worry and panic, deep in the back of his mind, and let out a long sigh.

“you’re right, bro,” he murmured, even though his SOUL still ached. His mouth tilted into a softer smile. “sorry. i was just … a little RATTLED, y’know?”

Papyrus stared at him a moment longer, his face filled with too many emotions for Sans to read, before he relaxed, too, his face settling into a soft, affectionate grin.

“IT’S OKAY, SANS,” he replied. Then he paused and frowned. “AND THAT WAS A TERRIBLE PUN.”

Sans smiled wider. “ah, c’mon, that one was—”

“DON’T!”

“SKULL-arious.”

Papyrus groaned and rolled his whole head along with his eyes. “YOU’RE NOT EVEN TRYING ANYMORE!”

He set down his bag and marched into the kitchen, Sans following him with ten more puns in less than a minute. Papyrus whined and pouted and stomped his foot, and Sans chuckled, even as his eyes kept drifting to the cracks in his brother’s bones.

Papyrus got to work on dinner, and every time he paused, Sans was there to heal him a little more, and by the time they were ready to sit down to eat, his finger had been set back in place, and the cracks, though still visible, no longer caused him pain. It would take at least a couple of days before they were completely gone. But it was a start.

Those humans were still out there, and many, many more. Thousands, millions, _billions_ of people who had hated them since they poured out of Mt. Ebbot six months ago and turned everything the humans knew about the world upside down.

Attacks on monsters were hardly rare, and Sans knew it was more than likely they would go after Papyrus again.

And Sans couldn’t always be at his side to make sure they wouldn’t hurt him.

But he wouldn’t think about that now. Right now, they were safe. Right now, Papyrus was okay—mostly—and smiling and stuffing his face with one of the recipes he had brought back from the restaurant, without a doubt the best he had made so far. They were together. They had reached the Surface and had a chance at the life they had always wanted.

It would take time. It would take work. The worst of it probably wasn’t even half-over.

But Papyrus could see the good in this world.

And as long as he was here, Sans could at least try to see it, too.

Sans ate his spaghetti and made pasta puns and laughed when Papyrus grumbled at every one.

And he silenced the little voice in his head that wondered how many times they had done this all before.


	2. Lonely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Wow_. You guys never stop being awesome, do you?
> 
> Just to be clear, this isn’t intended to be Soriel. I don’t have an issue with others shipping it, but, well … my first fic for this fandom was momplates. ;) So they’re just best buds here.

The second they walked through the gate to the backyard, Sans started counting.

He only reached three before Undyne came barreling forward and yanked Papyrus off his feet and into an—almost literally—bone-crushing embrace.

Huh. New record.

“ _Papyrus_!” she shouted, loud enough for half the neighborhood to hear.

“UNDYNE!” Papyrus squeaked out as she spun him around and he struggled to hold onto the bags still in his hands. “HOW ARE—ACK!”

Undyne squeezed him even tighter, her smile taking up a good half of her face. “I missed ya, you jerk!”

“I—ACK—MISSED YOU, TOO—UNDYNE! BUT—IT’S ONLY BEEN—OW—A WEEK!”

“I know!” Another tight squeeze before she let him go at last. As Papyrus got his balance back, she beamed, reaching out to noogie his skull. “ _Way_ too long! You just had to go get that job and get all busy, didn’t ya?”

“BUT YOU HAVE A JOB, TOO,” Papyrus replied with a wince.

Undyne pulled her hand back and let him rub his skull as she waved him off.

“Yeah, whatever.” She put her hands on her hips and leaned in, somehow managing to look both eager and a little bit concerned. “So, how’s it going? Those humans treatin’ you alright? ‘Cause if they aren’t …”

Her smile disappeared, and she raised one hand, punching into it with the other. Papyrus held his hands up in front of him.

“THEY’RE FINE, UNDYNE, EVERYONE IS VERY NICE! WELL, SOMETIMES THEY AREN’T EXTREMELY NICE, BUT MOST OF THE TIME THEY ARE!”

She looked him over, head to toe, but apparently couldn’t see the faint lines of the nearly-healed cracks, because a second later, she smiled again. “Well, you know who to call if anyone messes with ya. You’re still my apprentice, after all! And no one messes with my apprentice!”

She gave him a pat on the shoulder strong enough to make him stumble, but he just grinned back, steadied the bags in his hands, and followed her into the yard where the rest of their friends were waiting. Sans allowed himself one small chuckle, then sauntered after them.

Even if there was nothing else to look forward to throughout the entire week, he always had Tori’s weekend barbecues. She had hosted the first right after she got her house, as a “house-warming party” or something like that, and Papyrus had suggested she make it a regular thing, so that everyone who couldn’t see each other due to conflicting job schedules could at least get together for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. Granted, Sans still worked Sundays at least half of the time, but he always managed to twist his schedule so he had this time slot free.

And it always made a little of the tension built up in his bones slip away to stand in the fenced backyard while Undyne turned the grill into a smoke hazard, Alphys huddled on the porch with a new manga from the library, Papyrus laid out the buffet with the food everyone had brought, and Tori bustled around, helping wherever she could, offering a hug and a smile to each of her guests and catching up on how everyone had been.

Speaking of Tori.

She grinned as she approached him, apparently having been tending to the abused barbecue while Undyne was strangling Papyrus, her apron pristine despite the amount of sauce Undyne had dumped on the veggie patties. Unlike Undyne, she waited until he had set down his own bag of food before pulling him into a tight, warm embrace. He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of baking that clung to her no matter where she was, focusing on the feel of soft fur against his bones. There was nothing in the world that could beat Papyrus’s hugs, but Tori’s came pretty darn close.

After a minute, she pulled back, looking down at him with a smile just as wide.

“I was beginning worry the two of you wouldn’t make it.”

He chuckled and shrugged. “nah, i just had to wait to get off one of my jobs. wouldnt miss this, y’know?”

She didn’t seem to find the comment very funny, but then again, she had never liked the idea of him working as many jobs as he did.

“So how are you both?” she asked, as pleasantly as always. “I hope things aren’t too hectic.”

He shrugged again. “we’re okay.”

Tori’s smile slipped. “You don’t sound very okay.”

Sans forced another chuckle and glanced away, and when he looked back to her, his smile was set firmly in place.

“im fine.rdquo; He grinned wider. “you should know, you can see right thru me.”

She clamped her mouth shut, but a giggle still slipped through. His eyelights gleamed as she brought her hand to her mouth to muffle her laughter, schooling her face—not very successfully—into a frown.

“That’s not going to distract me, you know.”

He leaned in, browbone raised. “ah, cmon, tori, dont be so STERNUM.”

She snorted, closing her eyes and turning away to keep from outright laughing. He beamed. She gave him a fake-annoyed look, but he could see her smile.

“I’m going to go make sure Undyne doesn’t burn anything,” she said. Then her expression softened, and her amused smile smoothed into one of affection and concern. “If you want to talk, you know I’m always willing to _lend an ear._ ”

Sans didn’t bother to hold back his snicker.

Tori kept smiling, though it looked a little sad. She stared at him for a few seconds longer before she headed off to the grill.

He looked to Alphys next, just in time for her to look up from her manga and give him a brief smile and wave. But the comic drew her attention again, as it always did. She never came out of the shade until Undyne dragged her out to eat. Maybe later, he would join her.

For now, he just stood there, looking out at the lawn. Papyrus had spread out the food he had brought on the table, arranging it in perfect Papyrus fashion. In under a minute, Tori had turned the newly-smoking grill in a pleasantly sizzling fire, and Undyne seemed to have calmed down enough to lower her risk of settling the yard ablaze.

It was ordinary. It was simple. It was safe.

It was the best thing they had.

Then the back door to the house opened, and Sans turned just in time to see a kid, barely as tall as him, run across the yard with their arms spread out, right toward Papyrus.

Sans tensed.

His eye flared blue.

And the human threw themself right into Papyrus’s waiting arms, as Papyrus laughed and squeezed them in a tight hug.

“HUMAN FRISK!” He spun them around twice, then gripped them under the armpits and held them out in front of him, beaming. “IT’S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN! IT’S BEEN A WHOLE WEEK! OF COURSE, IT’S BEEN THAT LONG SINCE I’VE SEEN EVERYONE ELSE AS WELL, BUT YOU ARE VERY SMALL AND YOU GROW VERY FAST AND I THINK YOU’VE EVEN GROWN SINCE I LAST SAW YOU! COME, YOU MUST TELL ME ABOUT YOUR SCHOOL AND I WILL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT MY JOB!”

Frisk just giggled, and, when he set them down, walked with him across the yard.

It was the same every week. Frisk went over what had happened at school, what their teachers were like, their classmates, whether they did any assignments they liked or disliked, and Papyrus commented on everything, before finally telling Frisk what had happened at the restaurant since he had seen them last.

Listening to him now, Sans would have thought he had the best job in the world. The most patient boss, the kindest co-workers, the most generous customers. Even though his boss had never forgiven him for the slightest mistake. Even though his co-workers ignoring him counted as a good day. Even though Sans wasn’t sure if a customer had ever given him a tip.

It had gotten better in the month he had been there. But that wasn’t saying much.

Papyrus had never told him why he wanted the job, but Sans knew. He knew from the moment Papyrus first started looking through the newspaper for classified ads—even though he had no idea where to find the classified ads and spent half an hour hunting for them. He had probably known since before they left the Underground. The one thing that would motivate Papyrus this much to earn extra cash.

A car.

As much as Sans had wanted to protect him from the harsh realities of the world—and this world in particular—Papyrus quickly discovered that getting a car wasn’t such an easy task. They cost money. A lot of money. And they usually required credit, and valid identification, at least for the kind of car Papyrus had had his eyes on for most of his life. Identification and credit and money that very few monsters were able to get.

Tori had been helpful, of course. More than helpful. Asgore, too. Both of them had used all the diplomatic connections they could gather together to get both Papyrus and Sans official government identification, even faster than the rest of the monsters desperate to get such basic proof of citizenship. It allowed Sans to get a job early on, followed quickly by three more, so he could move out of the camp that had housed the entire monster community since their release from the Underground and into the only small, dirty apartment that would rent to a monster with no credit history.

After that, Sans had set out to get Papyrus into driver’s ed, which somehow was even harder than getting any of his jobs or the apartment. Mainly because most of the driver’s ed courses were for teenagers, and there were quite a few human parents that refused to have their kids in the same class as an adult monster. Even if said adult monster was Papyrus.

The one that finally let him in was small, and probably not very good, but they were legal and, according to Papyrus, “ONLY SAY MEAN THINGS QUIETLY, WHEN THEY THINK I CAN’T HEAR THEM, WHICH IS A LITTLE BETTER THAN THE ONES WHO SHOUT IT IN MY FACE.”

And they got him his license, completely legally, and Sans could almost forget all the trouble they had put him through when Papyrus stood there at the DMV, holding that little card in both hands and squealing loud enough to shatter the windows.

Almost.

But as difficult as a license had been, Sans knew that a car would be even tougher.

They weren’t starving, but even with the four jobs Sans had picked up, they still had little money to spare, especially since their landlord continued to charge them extra with the excuse that “it’s going to be a lot harder renting out the apartments next to yours once the tenants find out there are monsters living here.” So Sans picked up extra hours whenever he could get them, and had managed to get a fifth job as a contractor. His schedule was never set, and there were days when, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t even make it home to have dinner with his brother.

But there was more money in his bank account, and that was what mattered right now. More money in the bank meant he was a few steps closer to getting his brother that car.

More money meant less time before Papyrus could quit that stupid job at the restaurant and go back to doing something, _anything,_ that actually made him happy.

“SANS! HURRY UP AND BRING THE REST OF THE FOOD, WE CAN’T EAT IT IF IT’S STILL IN THE BAG!”

Sans lifted his head, shook away his thoughts, picked up the bag, and strolled across the yard. Papyrus still stood by the table, the kid right at his side. Sans tried to meet their eyes, but they kept their gaze turned away.

He couldn’t remember the last time they had really looked at him.

Papyrus took the bag and began laying out the food, chattering away to Frisk about the delicious snacks he had found at the grocery store yesterday, and Sans took the opportunity to slip off to the porch, grabbing a glass and filling it with ice and soda on the way there. Alphys raised her head to smile at him again, but by the time he had snagged his own lawn chair and flopped down into it, she had gone back to her comic.

He lifted the glass to his teeth and took a sip. Not too bad. Not nearly as good as ketchup, though. Tori usually kept some in the fridge for when he visited. He could probably go inside and get some, if he wanted.

But then he would have to get up, and now that he had sat down, he really didn’t feel like moving again.

No. Soda was good enough.

It was a nice day outside, right at the beginning of what humans apparently called “summer.” Almost as hot as Hotland at times, but today it was mild, with only a few clouds drifting across the pale blue sky. The grass was green and alive. There was just enough of a gentle breeze to be comfortable without making the paper napkins fly off the table. And the sun shone bright and warm, just as beautiful as Papyrus always said it was.

It was probably one of the nicest days they had seen.

This time around.

Papyrus broke into a loud, boisterous laugh, and Sans tilted his head to look at him. To look at the kid, giving his brother a shy smile, as if they had been the one to say something funny.

Their gaze shifted to the left, and for a second, just a second, they looked at Sans.

They stared.

Sans stared back.

Then they jerked their head back to Papyrus, their lips pinched before spreading into a smile once more. Papyrus hadn’t noticed.

But even as they went back to their conversation—Papyrus doing about ninety percent of the talking—Sans continued to stare at the kid. At the way their eyes almost shifted to him. At the way they fidgeted, as if knowing they were being watched. At every tiny shift in their expression that had once been all the proof he needed to know exactly what they had done.

How many times had they been here before?

How many times had he sat in this exact spot, on a mild day under the warm sun, watching all his friends smile and laugh and _live_?

How many times had Papyrus gotten the same job? How many times had he been attacked? How many times had Sans wondered whether the humans were ever going to just leave them be?

It had been six months.

Six months, and they were still here.

Had it been six months before? Had it been a year? Had it been two years, or three, or five or ten or—

Would they tell him, if he asked?

Would they even remember, after living through the same thing so many times?

His eyes drifted around the yard, to each of his friends, to his _brother._ What kind of lives had they made in the past? How much progress had they made? Had Papyrus stayed at the restaurant? Had Alphys and Undyne kept dating, or even gotten married? Had Tori finally succeeded in founding her own school, where monsters and humans were treated equally, where she ensured that the next generation, at least, would grow up with love and patience and kindness and tolerance, even if there was nothing they could do for the adults?

They all looked happy. Happy enough, even though he knew Undyne struggled to keep a job longer than a few weeks at a time with her tendency to blow up at the humans who offended her, and Alphys had to work from the ground up to earn degrees the humans recognized, even when she had earned her doctorate five times over in the Underground. Even though Tori barely managed to keep her job as a teacher when half the parents hated her.

Even though the cracks in Papyrus’s bones had yet to completely heal.

None of them knew. Except for the kid, of course, but he didn’t count that. None of his friends had any idea how many times they had gotten out. _He_ didn’t know how many times, even if he knew it had happened.

And he didn’t want anyone else to know. Not here. Not now. Not when there was nothing they could do about it.

Might as well let them enjoy it while they had it, for however long that was. Let them believe that they were safe. They were happier that way, weren’t they? They could enjoy the time they had left.

Tori was watching him again, a furrow to her brow and her lips pursed. But before she could come over to him and ask, he smiled wider and raised his glass toward her before settling back into his armchair with the best content sigh he could muster. When he looked back, she was chuckling and shaking her head and turning to the grill to take the veggie burgers off before Undyne turned them to ash.

“S-Sans?”

Sans turned his head just enough to meet Alphys’s eyes. She had set down her comic book and watched him a hint of concern glinting in her eyes.

“yeah?” he asked.

She fidgeted and glanced away. She had gotten so much better in the past few months. Still nervous, but far more comfortable, at least with them. All that progress, lost in a second.

“Are you … o-okay?” She chewed her bottom lip. “I mean, you s-seem … quieter today.”

Sans paused. Alphys was more observant than most, but Tori had picked up on it, too. And Papyrus had given him weird looks before they left the house, as if something was wrong. It wouldn’t be too long until Undyne noticed, if he was really slipping that much.

Not to mention the kid …

He chuckled, and pushed his smile up further.

“oh, you know me, alphys. i spend all week makin amazin jokes for my coworkers, i just gotta sit back and CHILL on the weekend.”

He lifted his drink and swirled the ice around inside. Alphys sighed and shook her head, covering up her smile. She glanced back to him once more time, a hint of skepticism in her eyes. Then she picked up her book and went back to reading. Sans stared at his drink, considered taking another sip, then finally set it down on the porch beside him.

He didn’t really feel like soda, anyway.

Several minutes later, the burgers were in their buns, and Tori called them all over to fill their plates. Undyne ran across the yard, flung a squealing Alphys over her shoulder, and carried her to the table, while Papyrus turned away from his chat with his best human friend to yell for Sans to stop napping and get his lunch.

The kid kept their head firmly turned toward the plate, but Sans swore they glanced at him out of the corner of their eye.

It didn’t matter how many times.

If they had done it once, they could do it again.

He hoisted himself out of his chair with an exaggerated stretch and a barely-audible murmur of how “BONE-tired” he was after a week of hard work, and as he made his way across the yard, he let his scattered mind ground itself on Papyrus’s dramatic groan.

They stayed there for another hour and a half, chatting and laughing and stuffing their faces with human food.

The kid didn’t look at him again.


	3. Drunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mes amis, vous etes magnifiques. Merci pour tous ses gentiles mots. 
> 
> (Did I just thank you in French and butcher the language at the same time? Probably.)

TGIF.

Sans had never heard that saying before they reached the Surface. Apparently it had never trickled down to monster society, or at least it had never gotten popular enough for him to hear it. But in the short time he had been here, he already understood why humans loved it. Granted, most of the time he worked a lot of weekends, too. But the brunt of his work was during the week, and he had taken to peeking at the clock whenever he got the chance, watching the second hand tick closer and closer to 4:00.

Usually, it was a relief. Fridays meant that Papyrus had the entire weekend off. A weekend to do things he enjoyed, to spend time with his friends, to rest, if resting were something Papyrus actually wanted to do. Two days away from the manager and his co-workers and the customers and that whole restaurant. Two days for him to recharge for the next week.

Papyrus smiled a little wider on Fridays.

And usually, Sans couldn’t wait to see it.

But today, when his boss dismissed him and he started through town, he didn’t find himself so eager to get home.

It was just another weekend, after all. Just another two days of Papyrus enjoying himself before his work beat him down again. There would be another barbecue, that was something to look forward to, right? But it would just be the same thing. He would share a few puns with Tori, Undyne would barely avoid blowing up the whole backyard, and Papyrus would hang out with his “best human friend” and chatter on about their respective weeks.

And Sans would spend another couple hours watching the kid, checking for signs that they had gotten bored. That one day this week, when he woke up, it would be in Snowdin, trapped behind the Barrier once again.

Maybe it would be this week. Maybe it would be tomorrow. Or maybe the kid would let them stay here a little longer. Stay here and struggle in a world that didn’t want them.

Either way, nothing ever changed.

So when he found his feet carrying him not toward the apartment, but toward another part of town, Sans let them.

He had been here before, briefly. He had been everywhere before, at some point. He liked to know where everything was, where he could escape to if someone tried to attack him. And subconsciously, he must have known the streets that his co-workers referred to over and over before they left on Friday, where they planned to meet, though they never invited him. He had at least three locations locked away in the back of his head.

And as his eyes fell on the intersection of Mulberry and Rowling, he wasn’t surprised to see the neon sign glowing in the late-afternoon sun to his left.

So that was a human bar.

It looked a little like Grillby’s, on the outside, even though it was made of brick rather than magically-fireproofed wood. He could see a counter and chairs and people inside, though the sun’s glare blocked him from seeing much else. He didn’t think his co-workers had gone to this one tonight. He hadn’t been listening to them, but surely they would have bumped into each other walking here. Though maybe they had taken their cars, or the bus. Since no one had a problem with them riding the bus.

He didn’t know why he was here. He would have been home by now, if he had gone his usual route. But even as he tried to drag himself away from the storefront, his feet resisted, even though they had carried him this far without complaint.

Sans stared at the glass front door, and the glowing green OPEN sign at the top.

He was tired. He was just … tired. And he didn’t want to go back to the apartment yet. He didn’t want to see everything cycle over once again. If he could put it off, just a little longer …

He could do that. He could let himself pretend, even if it wouldn’t last.

Besides, Papyrus wouldn’t be home for more than an hour. He had some time to kill.

He grabbed the doorhandle, pulled it open, and walked inside.

It was fairly quiet, the bustle of the street replaced by the clinking of glasses, the murmur of patrons, and the faint background music. As soon as the door shut behind him, he felt several sets of eyes—human eyes—drift to him from barstools and tables. A few of them turned to glares, but others just looked back to their drinks or their conversation partners.

Sans lingered for a moment, eyes drifting from side to side, before he slipped his hands back into his pockets and sauntered in with the same lazy gait he used at Grillby’s. Except this wasn’t Grillby’s. He was the only monster here, from what he could see, and rather than greeting him with a knowing nod and a bottle of ketchup, the human behind the bar just watched him in silence as he approached the bar.

He hoisted himself onto a stool right in front of her. She said nothing, just looked, one tattooed hand cleaning the rim of a glass with a rag before setting it off to the side. He folded his arms in front of him.

“lemme guess,” he drawled, far too tired to sound annoyed. “you don’t serve my kind here.”

The human raised an eyebrow and looked him up and down. He hadn’t looked in the mirror all day. He didn’t think that stain in his hoodie had come out when Papyrus washed it, and he was pretty sure there were still dark circles under his eyes. He leaned back, crossed his arms, and let her stare.

Finally, she shrugged.

“As long as you’re payin’ and you don’t start any fights, I don’t care if you’re a pile of goop,” she replied. Sans’s browbone furrowed, and a smirk touched her lips. “What can I get you?”

His browbone smoothed out, even though he still wasn’t sure what to make of her. “don’t s’pose you have any ketchup.”

This time, both her eyebrows went up.

“Are you sure you’re in the right place? We don’t do food here, just drinks.”

“ketchup can be a drink,” he said.

She blinked. She looked him over one more time, a bit more thoroughly, even more confused than when he had first sat down.

“Is that a monster … uh … skeleton thing?”

“it’s a sans thing.”

He had given up on actually getting ketchup, of course, not that he had really expected them to have any in the first place. He didn’t know why he had even come here. Bars had never really been his thing unless they served extremely greasy burgers and fries, and human bars were a whole other story. He was lucky he had walked into one that didn’t throw him out on sight.

The human hadn’t looked away from him, her expression now as much amused as it was unsure. She crossed her arms.

“We have Bloody Marys.”

Sans sat up a little straighter, not bothering to conceal his brief shock. “you have what?”

“Bloody,” she repeated, like she was talking to someone exceptionally slow. “Marys.”

He stared at her for a good ten seconds.

“you serve blood?” he asked, chuckling, though it came out sounding nervous. “i thought vampires were s’posed to be a myth.”

“Well, six months ago, so were monsters,” she replied. He had nothing to say to that. She smirked, and suddenly looked a good deal less intimidating. “It’s tomato juice and booze. If you like ketchup, maybe you’d like that.”

Sans shrugged one shoulder, and without a word, she turned around, grabbed one of the bottles of clear liquid from the back and a can of tomato juice, and started mixing them together. He tried to peer around her to get a better look—he had heard cases of humans trying to poison monsters—but before he could, she had returned to the counter and placed a glass of thin red liquid in front of him.

In the dim light, it still looked like blood.

The human raised an eyebrow. She didn’t _seem_ like the type to try to poison him. And anyway, half the time the human poisons didn’t even affect monsters, so …

He picked up the glass, brought it to his mouth, and took a small sip.

His brow furrowed.

“tastes weird,” he said as he set the glass back down. “s’not much like ketchup.”

The human smirked. “You’re one of those weirdos that hates tomatoes but loves ketchup, aren’t you?”

“yup,” he replied, swishing the drink back and forth in his glass and watching the red liquid cling to the sides.

“You gonna pay?”

Sans reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and slammed a few bills on the counter without looking at them. It hurt a little, getting rid of money so carelessly, but frankly he was sick of counting every single coin he spent.

“that enough?” he asked.

The human stared at him for a moment, blinking, then picked up the cash and began counting through it. “You’re really lucky I’m honest, buddy.”

Sans hummed, then, on a whim, picked up the drink and took another sip. It was … strange. A vague salty taste, like a milder version of ketchup, a little tangy and a little sweet, with something much sharper mixed in. The sharper taste was disgusting, but it wasn’t overwhelming, and Sans found himself taking another sip, and another, and another after that.

By the time he was finished, the human was just setting his change on the counter, and he was staring at a near-empty glass.

“s’not too bad, actually,” he said. “can you get me another one?”

The human gave him a long, contemplating look. Then she snatched up the change, moved it close to the register, and went back to the counter behind her to mix up another drink.

He wasn’t aware of much else after that. He sipped his drink and chatted with the human, though he found himself doing far more of the talking. With each sip, his mind got a little fuzzier—right, that was what human alcohol was supposed to do, wasn’t it?—and he found the world around him a little more faded. His work day felt months away. Everything felt far away. Blurred. Nonsensical.

He had nothing to go back to. Nothing to do, nothing but slap more cash onto the counter as the human refilled his drink again and again. She tried to talk to him a few times, but he couldn’t understand what she said, so he just laughed. Once, she disappeared from the counter and reappeared at his side, patting at his pockets. He tried three times to make a joke, and he was pretty sure they all came out just as he intended, but she never laughed. Ah, well. Not everyone liked his jokes. Whatever she was looking for, she found it quickly and went back behind the counter.

Should he be letting her take things out of his pockets? He didn’t know. He didn’t really care.

It felt like hours later when something touched the back of his shoulder, and Sans tilted his head to face it.

There was someone standing over him. Over … right, he had slumped down in his chair. He was still in his chair, right? Yeah, his head was on the counter, resting on one of his arms. He squinted through blurred sockets, and as his eyes focused, he felt his smile soften in fond recognition.

“hey ‘pyrus.”

But Papyrus didn’t respond. He didn’t even smile. When did Papyrus not smile? Well, plenty of times, like whenever Sans made a bad joke. Had he made a bad joke? He didn’t remember making one. But he made them a lot. Maybe he forgot.

Heh. Rhyme.

“YOU DIDN’T CALL ME,” Papyrus said, drawing Sans’s attention back up. There was something wrong with his voice. It was … tight and quiet. His voice wasn’t supposed to sound like that. It was supposed to sound open and happy and loud, but this wasn’t anything like that, and suddenly Sans could see Papyrus’s face better, the crease in his browbone, the tight line of his mouth. “I THOUGHT YOU …”

Sans dragged his sockets back open where they tried to droop. He sat up a little straighter, even though it made him dizzy. “oh … s’ry, paps, i …”

Papyrus closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, browbone more furrowed than before.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

Sans turned to the half-full glass in front of him and poked it with one finger. “just having a little … wuz this called ‘gain?”

“Five Bloody Marys,” the human replied. He couldn’t tell whether she sounded more amused, annoyed or concerned. Maybe all of them. Probably all of them.

“s’not real blood,” Sans added, looking back to Papyrus.

It didn’t seem to help. Papyrus was even harder to read than the human. That was weird. Usually it was easy to look at his face and know what he was feeling. Maybe the alcohol did that.

After a minute, Papyrus broke their gaze and gave the human a nod.

“THANK YOU FOR CALLING ME.”

“Sure thing,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “I hoped your name being in all caps on his phone meant something.”

Sans snickered. Right. Papyrus had put his name in Sans’s new phone, hadn’t he? THE GREAT PAPYRUS, he wrote, at the top of Sans’s favorites list. Sans never moved it.

He tilted his head to meet his brother’s eyes, smiling. Papyrus still didn’t smile back.

Sans couldn’t figure out why he looked so sad.

And before he could ask, Papyrus sighed.

“COME ON, SANS. LET’S GO HOME.”

“k,” Sans breathed.

He had just started to wonder whether standing up was a bad idea when Papyrus slipped one arm around his back and another under his legs and hoisted him up to rest against his chest.

At first, Sans stiffened, his addled mind waking for a second before it settled again, far more relaxed than before. All the residual tension in his bones slid away, and he reached up to wrap his arms around Papyrus’s neck and nestle his head against his shoulder. His sockets fell shut entirely on their own.

He barely noticed the sound of the door opening and closing, or the rush of warm air against his skull. He just let the steady rhythm of Papyrus’s steps lull him further, resting in the absolute certainty that he was safe. Nothing could happen to him here. Well, it could, it could happen anytime, a human could attack them or the kid could get bored and reset everything or they could just turn to dust for no reason at all. But he was here, with Papyrus. At least if it all ended, this was the last place he would be.

Maybe he’d even get to remember it.

“youre comfy,” he murmured.

Papyrus kept walking. “I KNOW. YOU’VE SAID THAT BEFORE.”

He sounded upset. Had something happened? Maybe the humans were being mean to him again. Sans had to do something about that. But not now. His head wasn’t working too good, and the gentle rocking that came from Papyrus’s steady steps was only making it worse.

“so the bar human called ya?”

“HER NAME IS DENISE,” Papyrus replied. “SHE SAID YOU HAD BEEN DRINKING A LOT AND SHE WASN’T SURE HOW ALCOHOL AFFECTED MONSTERS BUT SHE DIDN’T KNOW IF SHE COULD SEND YOU TO A HOSPITAL IF YOU DIDN’T REACT WELL. SO SHE ASKED IF I COULD COME AND GET YOU.”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but Sans could feel him move his head, as if to look him over.

“DO YOU NEED ME TO HEAL YOU?”

Sans chuckled. He didn’t know why it was funny, but the sound came out all on its own.

“nah, bro … i’m fine … just … yeah, m’fine …” He snuggled a little closer. “thanks.”

He let his eyes close again. He could go to sleep here. It was easy to sleep when Papyrus carried him, and he was already so tired. Maybe if he fell asleep now, he wouldn’t be quite as sleepy when it was time to go to his job tomorrow.

Tomorrow. What day was tomorrow? Saturday? He still had work on Saturday, right? Yeah. Yeah, he had that one job, the new one with the weird hours. A few hours on Saturday, some late on Sunday, a few during the week. Not much, but it was extra cash. They needed extra cash.

Cash.

How much had those five Bloody Marys cost, anyway?

“WHY DID YOU GO THERE?”

Sans opened his sockets and tilted his head to peer up at Papyrus’s face. His expression hadn’t changed, and this time, he wouldn’t even meet Sans’s eyes, staring ahead of them with a creased browbone and a tight mouth.

“YOU’VE NEVER GONE TO A BAR BEFORE. EXCEPT GRILLBYS AND THEN YOU ONLY HAVE BURGERS AND FRIES. AND KETCHUP.”

“dunno,” Sans mumbled. “just … thas where all the humans go when they don’t wanna think ‘bout stuff. thought i’d give it a try.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WHEN YOU DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT STUFF?” Papyrus asked, his footsteps slowing, his voice unsure.

Sans shook his head. “nothin …”

Papyrus went quiet for a long time. His steps remained steady, his arms secure around Sans’s back, and it was getting more and more difficult not to fall asleep. His mind was fuzzy and his body felt warm and Papyrus was here, he was safe, everything was okay, even if it wouldn’t be okay tomorrow. Even if it would never really be okay again. For right now, it was okay.

“WHAT IF DENISE WAS RIGHT?” Papyrus asked, making Sans blink open sockets he didn’t realize had closed. “WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T REACT WELL? WHAT IF YOU’D GOTTEN HURT?”

Sans hated his voice sounding like that, all tense and worried. Papyrus wasn’t supposed to sound like that. Not ever. He shook his head again, letting out a soft sigh.

“s’fine, bro … doesn’t matter …”

Papyrus stiffened. “IT DOES MATTER! WHAT IF YOU’D …?”

He trailed off. His arms tightened, and Sans heard the slight shudder to his breath.

“PEOPLE DIE FROM THAT! I SAW IT ON THE NEWS ONCE! AND SOMEONE TALKED ABOUT IT AT THE RESTAURANT!”

Sans let out a soft hum and nestled his head under Papyrus’s chin. “s’okay … ‘d be fine … even if I died, it’d just reset, wouldn’t even ‘member it …”

Something told him he wasn’t supposed to say that. But the voice in his head sounded like his voice, and he didn’t really trust his voice at this point, so he ignored it. Papyrus paused again, longer this time.

“YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE, SANS.”

No, he wasn’t. He was … drunk, that was the word. Drunk. He had never been drunk before. It was weird. He couldn’t decide whether he liked it or not. He was sleepy and warm and comfortable, and he wanted to stay like this forever, but Papyrus kept getting upset every time he said something and he couldn’t figure out why.

“AND YOU’RE NOT GOING TO DIE,” Papyrus added, his voice tighter than before. Sans didn’t respond, and he felt Papyrus’s bones tense. “PROMISE ME YOU’RE NOT GOING TO DIE.”

“… don like promises …” Sans grumbled into his brother’s shirt.

“WELL, THIS IS IMPORTANT,” Papyrus said. “YOU CAN’T DIE, SANS. PROMISE ME YOU WON’T DIE.”

He sounded scared. He shouldn’t sound scared, Papyrus should never sound scared, but Sans couldn’t think of a single thing to say to make him stop. “everyone dies, paps …”

Something like a whimper slipped out of Papyrus’s throat, and he squeezed Sans so tight it hurt.

“BUT NOT FOR A LONG TIME. A LONG, LONG TIME.”

Despite the haze in his head, Sans winced.

Did promises count through the resets? He hadn’t really thought about it. He hadn’t had _time_ to think about it, not that he remembered. Besides, he was pretty sure he went to talk to Tori every time. And she had always asked him to protect the human.

Even when the human was going to kill her in an hour.

He wouldn’t remember this later. Papyrus wouldn’t remember it, once the kid reset. So it didn’t really matter either way.

And even though he could barely see through his blurred sockets, he couldn’t stand to let that pained frown remain on Papyrus’s face.

“not gonna die yet … promise …” he breathed.

Papyrus relaxed. Not completely. He still held Sans so close that their ribs pressed against each other, his grip tight enough that even if Sans had wanted to escape, he doubted he could.

“GOOD,” Papyrus replied, soft as he leaned his head down to nuzzle Sans’s skull. “GOOD.”

Part of Sans wanted to say something else. Something important. Something pressing right against his teeth. But he couldn’t figure out what it was, so he let it go, and with it, the last of the tension in his bones faded away.

His sockets slid shut, and in under a minute, the gentle rocking of Papyrus’s footsteps and the warmth of his embrace had lulled him deep into sleep.


	4. Jealousy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, everyone. :)

He was dying.

He was definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent dying. Because he was sure that there was nothing short of death that could make every part of him hurt this much.

The first coherent thought he managed was that he should have written a real will.

The second was wondering why someone had shoved a bowling ball inside his skull.

How had they even gotten it _inside_ his skull in the first place? Had his mouth suddenly opened overnight? Maybe they had stuck a deflated bowling ball inside his head then blown it up through one of his eyesockets—wait, that was balloons, not bowling balls—oh, _who the hell cared, he just wanted it to stop hurting._

It wasn’t a bowling ball, or a balloon. It was that … what were they called again? The tomato juice. And the booze.

Right. Booze.

That was what he did last night.

He had spent a long time wondering why some of his co-workers came to work on Saturdays grumpier than usual. Now he wondered how they had gotten to work at all.

Wait, he had work today, didn’t he?

A knock sounded, and Sans winced, squinting his eyes open just enough to see the door. A few seconds later, it opened, revealing the blurred form of a brightly grinning Papyrus, holding an overloaded tray in both hands.

“GOOD MORNING!”

“nngh …” Sans rolled over to press his skull deeper into his pillow, sockets clenched shut. “could ya … could ya keep it down a little, bro?”

Papyrus paused.

“OH. SORRY,” he said, in his version of a whisper, which was closer to everyone else’s normal speaking voice. It was good enough, though, and Sans tilted his head to look at him again, his vision blurred through squinted eyes. Papyrus lifted up the tray in his hands and smiled again. “I BROUGHT BREAKFAST.”

Sans hadn’t even thought about food, and now that he did, it was almost the most unattractive thing he had ever considered. Except more Bloody Marys. How tired had he been to think that was a good idea? He had never claimed to be the best at making smart decisions, but he had at least assumed he was better than this.

Papyrus, ignorant of what his brother wanted or not, bent down to place the tray next to the mattress, before sitting down very carefully beside it.

“I READ A LOT ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO AFTER YOU DRINK TOO MUCH ALCOHOL. THE ADVICE WAS ALL FOR HUMANS, BUT I BET IT WILL WORK FOR MONSTERS, TOO!”

His voice had gotten louder again, but Sans didn’t ask him to lower it. He looked down at the tray and found what looked like four slices of overdone dry toast and a pile of something that he guessed was noodles mixed with eggs, chopped vegetables, and marinara sauce. Next to it sat a glass, which Papyrus picked up and held a little too close to Sans’s face.

“FIRST, YOU DRINK LOTS AND LOTS OF WATER!” he said, smiling wider. “SOME OF THE WEBSITES SAID YOU SHOULD DRINK MORE ALCOHOL, BUT I DON’T THINK THAT MAKES MUCH SENSE. SO WATER IT IS!”

Sans didn’t really feel like water—he didn’t feel like anything—but he accepted a few sips of it, tipped carefully into his mouth when he didn’t move to hold the glass himself. About half of it dripped over his face and onto his pillow and mattress, but he didn’t care. Water would probably do his bed good.

“sorry,” he murmured as Papyrus set the glass aside.

Papyrus paused, reaching for the fork. His browbone furrowed. “FOR WHAT?”

“last night.” Sans reached up to rub his forehead and stared at the ceiling. The light still hurt, and he wanted to close his eyes, but he forced them to stay open. “shouldntve … yeah. that was bad.”

Papyrus went quiet for a moment.

“IT WAS A RATHER FOOLISH DECISION, I WILL ADMIT,” he replied. Sans tilted his head enough to look at him out of the corner of his eye, and found Papyrus frowning in thought. “BUT YOU’VE BEEN DOING A LOT OF WORK LATELY AND HAVE NOT BEEN MUCH OF A LAZYBONES AT ALL. SO … I THINK YOU’VE EARNED A FOOLISH DECISION. JUST ONE.”

Sans felt a little of the tension he hadn’t even noticed in his chest slip away. Still, some of it remained. “sorry you had to come get me, tho.”

At this, Papyrus’s head snapped up, and he stared at Sans with wide, baffled sockets.

“WHAT ELSE WOULD I DO?” he asked. “YOU’RE MY BROTHER, I WOULDN’T JUST LEAVE YOU THERE! YOU MIGHT HAVE DONE SOMETHING EVEN STUPIDER! OR MAYBE YOU’D HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP ON A BENCH! I HEARD PEOPLE DO THAT WHEN THEY DRINK A LOT OF ALCOHOL. OR IN AN ALLEY. OR THEY DO SILLY THINGS AND PEOPLE FILM THEM AND PUT IT ON THE INTERNET. I COULDN’T HAVE MY OWN BROTHER DOING SILLY THINGS ON THE INTERNET!”

He stopped then, looking off to the side, his expression softer.

“BESIDES, I WAS … WORRIED ABOUT YOU. AND I KNOW THAT IF I MADE A FOOLISH DECISION LIKE THAT, WHICH I NEVER WOULD, OF COURSE, BUT IF I DID, YOU WOULD COME THERE AND CARRY ME HOME AS WELL.”

His brow creased, and he tilted his head.

“WELL, MAYBE YOU WOULDN’T CARRY ME. BUT YOU WOULD BRING ME HOME SOMEHOW.” He turned to Sans again and offered him a bright smile. “SO NEVER FEAR, DEAR BROTHER! THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL ALWAYS BE HERE TO TAKE CARE OF YOU!”

Sans sighed, his sockets half-lidded, his grin a little more genuine. “you’re so cool, bro.”

Papyrus beamed. “I KNOW!”

“and the best brother,” Sans added.

Papyrus smiled wider, and it was the best thing Sans had seen in his entire life.

“YES, I AM! NYEH HEH HEH!” Papyrus put his hands on his hips and held his head high, grinning at the empty air as if there were a crowd in front of him, cheering him on. A second later, though, he opened his eyes and looked down at Sans. His smile slipped, his browbone creasing near the center. “BUT YOU ARE A VERY GOOD BROTHER, TOO.”

Sans’s sockets drooped, but he forced them to stay open.

“you’re really great. amazing. best brother ever.”

Papyrus’s smile stayed small, and his browbone furrowed harder. “THAT IS ALL TRUE, SANS, BUT WHY ARE YOU SAYING IT?”

Sans just settled his head a little more on his pillow, shaking it back and forth as he took in the sight of his brother. His precious, amazing, wonderful, irreplaceable brother. He let out a soft breath. “dunno how you do it.”

Papyrus still didn’t smile.

“DO WHAT?”

“feel so good all the time,” Sans replied. “always know you’re the best, no matter what.”

Papyrus frowned, a worried frown that made Sans’s SOUL hurt almost as much as his head. His sockets really wanted to close now, but he wouldn’t let them. Not yet. He had to say it. He had to make sure Papyrus understood.

“always got something nice to say. smiling at everyone even if it’s a bad day. no matter what anyone says, you always know how great you are.”

Even though Papyrus still didn’t smile, Sans smiled for him. It hurt, but it was a smile.

“wish i was like that, too,” he muttered. He wasn’t sure he had meant to say that. But it was too late to unsay it. He chuckled and reached up a hand to rub a particularly painful part of his skull. “guess it makes sense, tho. you’d feel so great all the time. great papyrus and all.”

Papyrus should have been smiling. He always smiled at stuff like that, right? But now he just pushed the glass a little closer on the tray, staring at the floor in front of him.

“YOU SHOULD DRINK MORE WATER, SANS.”

Sans looked at the water, stared for a couple seconds, then looked back to Papyrus. “cant i have ketchup?”

Papyrus furrowed his browbone.

“SANS, THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR KETCHUP!” But Sans kept looking at him, and after a few seconds Papyrus turned away again, his mouth curled into something like a pout. “MAYBE I’LL BRING YOU SOME LATER. AFTER YOU DRINK YOUR WATER.”

“k,” Sans breathed, and when Papyrus brought the water to his mouth, he drank without complaint.

Once he finished his water, he lay back on the pillow, and to his slight relief, Papyrus didn’t try to get him to eat any of the food. He didn’t feel nauseous—or his version of nauseous, he had gotten the impression humans felt nausea quite a bit differently, since they had stomachs and all—but food still didn’t sound all that appetizing, and the water had filled him up plenty. He settled against his mattress and let himself smirk a little when Papyrus grimaced at the stain near the corner.

His sockets had just begun to close, ready to let him fall into sleep, when Papyrus broke the silence again.

“YOU KNOW … A LONG LONG TIME AGO … WHEN I WAS MUCH SMALLER … I MAYBE WAS NOT QUITE AS AWARE OF HOW GREAT I AM.”

Sans tensed. Just a little, as he struggled to process what exactly Papyrus had said. He dragged his heavy sockets back open, searching through his blurred vision for Papyrus’s face.

Papyrus wasn’t looking at him. He was staring off to the side, at the wall. There was a tiny furrow on the bone of his forehead, and he fidgeted before he went on. “AND MAYBE, SOMETIMES, I SAW HOW SMART YOU WERE, AND I … WISHED … JUST A BIT, JUST A LITTLE … THAT I WAS LESS LIKE ME AND MORE LIKE YOU.”

Suddenly, Sans’s eyes didn’t feel quite so heavy.

But even as Sans peered closer, Papyrus kept his gaze on the wall.

“THEN, ONE DAY, I SAT DOWN AND I THOUGHT ABOUT IT,” he said, that tiny furrow growing smaller by the second. “I THOUGHT THAT … I COULDN’T BE SANS. I COULD NEVER BE SANS. AND … I DIDN’T WANT TO BE SANS. BECAUSE … YOU’RE SANS, AND EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE LAZY AND SLACK OFF AND YOU MAKE TERRIBLE JOKES AND YOU EAT SO MUCH DISGUSTING GREASY FOOD … YOU’RE THE BEST AT BEING SANS. NO ONE COULD EVER BE SANS BETTER THAN YOU.”

He sat up straighter, and Sans swore he saw a hint of a smile on his mouth.

“AND … NO ONE COULD EVER BE PAPYRUS BETTER THAN ME. SO I DECIDED … IF I WAS THE ONLY PAPYRUS, IF I WAS THE _BEST_ PAPYRUS … THEN I WOULD BE THE BEST PAPYRUS I COULD POSSIBLY BE. ”

He looked back to Sans, his head still tilted to the side. Now, the smile was obvious.

“AND EVERYONE’S LIKE THAT!” he added, his voice loud and exuberant and even though it made Sans’s skull ache, he wouldn’t have stopped it for the world. “PERHAPS THEY WILL NEVER BE THE GREAT PAPYRUS, BUT THEY CAN BE THE GREAT UNDYNE, OR THE GREAT ALPHYS OR GREAT TORIEL OR GREAT ASGORE OR GREAT HUMAN FRISK OR GREAT MOLDSMAL OR … OR THE GREAT SANS.”

Papyrus’s smile trembled a bit, and he reached out to lay a gentle hand on Sans’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. Sans swallowed the lump in his throat, and as difficult as it was, managed a smile in return.

He didn’t say anything else. He lay there and let Papyrus feed him small, slow bites of the spaghetti-egg mixture, while he rambled on about all the great people in the world, and even though his head still hurt, even though he had work later that day and he had absolutely no idea how he was going to get out of bed long enough to get there, he let his eyes shut.

Later. He could deal with everything later.

For now—even if it was just for a moment—they were together, they were safe, and they were here.

And as brief as it might turn out to be, everything was alright.


	5. Emotion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the angst returns ...
> 
> (Thank you, everyone. :) )

The rest of the weekend went by so fast Sans barely remembered it.

Or maybe that was because he spent every second he wasn’t at work either fighting off his headache or dead asleep.

Yeah, that might have had something to do with it.

He went to the barbecue, of course. He had yet to miss a barbecue. All he did was sit on a lawn chair next to Alphys and pretend to sleep, but he went. And whenever his eyes weren’t shut, they drifted to Papyrus, watching him help Undyne at the grill and set up the food and play games and chat with the kid, grinning and laughing and chattering away, exactly as he always had. As if nothing was different about this weekend at all.

But while the sight usually would have made Sans relax, if only a little, now, he just tensed further.

And no matter how many times he tried to brush them off, his mind kept drifting back to the words his addled mind had barely caught on Saturday morning as he lay hungover in bed.

He said nothing about it, at first. On Monday morning, he got up and went to work, like he always did. He came home. Papyrus made dinner. Sans set the table, even though he did a terrible job and Papyrus grumbled before fixing it up to look nice. Then they both sat down to eat, just as they had every evening for months.

But the words didn’t leave Sans’s head.

And after five minutes of silence broken only by the clinking of silverware on plates, Sans found himself speaking before he had the chance to think.

“did you really mean what you said?”

Papyrus’s head snapped up from his food, his fork swirled in a lump of spaghetti. “WHAT?”

“on saturday,” Sans replied, tilting his head so his eyes locked on the table. “when you said … that you didn’t always know how great you are.”

Silence. Sans waited, unmoving, staring at his plate of untouched food. The spaghetti looked better than passable tonight. It smelled fine, there were no suspicious lumps or under- or overcooked bits of pasta that he could see. The only thing that marked it as a Papyrus dish was the full cup of fresh basil he had dumped on top.

“OH.” Papyrus fidgeted audibly in his seat. “I DIDN’T THINK YOU’D REMEMBER THAT. ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU PASSED OUT FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER.”

Sans didn’t respond. Papyrus cleared his throat.

“BUT YES, I DID MEAN IT. THERE WAS A TIME WHEN EVEN I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WAS NOT AWARE OF HOW GREAT I WAS.”

His voice rang out with dramatic mourning, but it was shallow, thin, and for the first time, Sans could see what was underneath it. Vague and shapeless but definitely _there._

How long had it been there?

How long had Sans missed it?

“you never told me.”

The pause was longer this time. Sans wanted to look up, wanted to see the expression on his brother’s face. He could imagine it. He could picture the distressed frown, the furrow of his browbone, his eyes shifting from side to side. Because he had worn that expression so many times before. But every time Sans’s eyes start to lift, he paused, and found himself wondering whether even that had been real.

“WELL … IT WASN’T THAT BAD,” Papyrus said at last. “I WAS ALRIGHT. BESIDES, YOU HAD A LOT OF STUFF TO DO.”

Sans’s hand tightened around the edge of the table. “you’re my brother. everything else could wait.”

Another pause.

“I DIDN’T WANT TO BOTHER YOU.”

“you wouldn't’ve been bothering me,” Sans murmured.

Papyrus shifted in his seat and set his fork back down on his plate.

“LIKE I SAID, IT WASN’T THAT BAD. AND IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG TO FIGURE IT OUT. NOW I KNOW, AND I’LL NEVER FORGET!”

Sans looked up, before he could stop himself, and found Papyrus smiling back at him from across the table. It was such a Papyrus smile, the smile Sans would have done anything in the world to see for as long as he could remember.

But now he looked past it. He searched Papyrus’s face for anything other than the pure, unadulterated confidence and glee that had characterized his brother for their entire lives. His browbone creased.

“do you ever feel like that now?”

And there it was.

Just for a second. But it was there.

Even if Papyrus was far better at hiding things than Sans suspected, he couldn’t hide the cringe that flashed across his face.

Then it was gone.

“NO,” Papyrus replied. “OF COURSE NOT. I KNOW THAT I’M GREAT. I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AFTER ALL.”

He raised a fist in triumph and beamed. Sans’s permanent grin stayed the same.

“never?”

Papyrus looked back down, and bit by bit, his smile fell. His hand dropped back down to his side, and he stared at his half-eaten spaghetti.

“WELL … SOMETIMES IT WAS HARD. BEFORE WE CAME TO THE SURFACE,” he said, a bit more quietly, never quite meeting Sans’s eyes. “BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH I WAS GREAT, I HADN’T YET MADE ALL OF MY WONDERFUL FRIENDS, AND SOMETIMES I WONDERED … IF PERHAPS OTHERS DID NOT SEE MY GREATNESS AS MUCH AS I DID.”

Sans didn’t think his SOUL had twisted this much since Papyrus walked through the door almost two weeks ago now, torn and cracked and doing everything he could to hold up his smile. He gripped the table hard enough to make his hands shake.

Papyrus glanced up at him, his eyes soft, yet wide and vulnerable and _god,_ how had Sans missed this, he had looked a little down, sure, but it had been brief, just a few bad days, not—

“YOU DID, OF COURSE. AND UNDYNE TOLD ME I WAS GREAT, EVEN WHEN SHE SAID I WASN’T READY TO JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD YET. BUT …”

His mouth began to curl up again. Slowly, forcefully, like he was dragging it up by hand. But when he raised his head at last, it settled into the same wide grin he wore every morning at breakfast. Every evening when he got home from work. Every weekend when he piled in all the stuff he didn’t have time to do during the week.

Never stopping. Never pausing.

Never giving Sans a chance to really look at him.

“BUT NOW I HAVE LOTS OF FRIENDS, AND EVERYONE SEES HOW GREAT I AM. SO EVERYTHING IS FINE!” His smile held for all of five seconds before it slipped, just a bit. “MOST OF THE TIME.”

Sans stared, silent. Papyrus cleared his throat.

“I MEAN, EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL! WE’RE ON THE SURFACE AND EVERYONE IS TOGETHER AND I GET TO SEE THE SUNRISE EVERY MORNING.”

Yeah. The sunrise. He loved the sunrise. Every single morning, usually long before Sans got up, Papyrus was out on the landing, watching the sun rise and greeting the new day. And sometimes he actually got to stand there and enjoy it.

And other times the lady down the hall threw things at him, shouting at him to stay away from her children.

Then he went to work. At the restaurant, the restaurant that had barely hired him in the first place. They had been clear about that. Papyrus hadn’t repeated the exact words, but Sans had gotten the gist. “No one else to hire who can work full-time.” And in the first week, they made him prove his worth a thousand times over, a thousand times more than any human employee would have had to. Giving him three different tasks that all had to be done _right now,_ demanding he come early and stay late, sending him to serve the most difficult customers and clean the worst messes. All while his co-workers tripped him and spilled food on him and pulled some of the nastiest pranks Sans had ever seen.

Papyrus hadn’t talked about it, of course. But Sans knew. It was his brother’s first job on the Surface, after all. And Sans spent as much time poking his head in through the back doors and spying through the window as his own jobs would allow.

One day, early on, he had dropped by the restaurant over his break just in time to see Papyrus’s manager telling him off with quite a few words Papyrus didn’t even know, while Papyrus ducked his head and stared at the floor and looked more broken and afraid than Sans had seen him in years.

Sans had been very, very close to grabbing the manager’s SOUL and slamming him into the nearest wall.

But Papyrus saw him first, and immediately the fear morphed into a wide, surprised smile, and he had slipped away as soon as he could to greet Sans and show him around his workspace.

As if nothing was wrong.

Except something _had_ been wrong.

And if something had been wrong then, and he had _still_ smiled, looking as blissfully happy as he always did—

“are they still doing all that stuff to you at work?” he asked.

Papyrus had apparently gone back to his spaghetti when Sans didn’t respond, and now he paused with the fork right next to his mouth, frozen for a moment before the words seemed to register.

“WHAT?” He set the fork back down, a little too fast. “I TOLD YOU, SANS, EVERYONE IS VERY—”

“please, papyrus,” Sans muttered, forcing himself to keep looking at him. “are they?”

Papyrus hesitated. He glanced from side to side and slid down a bit in his seat, just enough for Sans to notice, now that he was paying attention. How many little things had he missed? How many of these tiny gestures had he been too distracted to see?

“NOT ALL THE TIME,” he replied. “IT WAS WORSE WHEN I FIRST GOT THE JOB. BUT IT’S GOTTEN A LOT BETTER!”

“but they still hurt you,” Sans said.

Papyrus stiffened. “THEY DON’T HURT ME.”

“they do,” Sans shot back. He came very close to cracking the edge of the table with his grip as every little clue snapped into place. “don’t they? it’s not just the customers, is it? you said your co-workers were better now.”

“THEY ARE.”

“did they stop pranking you?”

Papyrus rubbed one hand over the other, looking away. “WELL … NO. NOT REALLY.”

“does the manager still yell at you?”

“ONLY A LITTLE,” he said, insistent, as if that made it even a tiny bit better. “ONLY IF SOMETHING REALLY BAD HAPPENS.”

“and how often’s that?” Sans asked. His voice was so quiet now even he could barely hear it, and it was all he could do to keep it from bursting from the inside out.

Papyrus hadn’t fidgeted this much since they were waiting in line at the DMV.

“MAYBE A FEW TIMES A WEEK.” He looked back and smiled again, wider and wider, his everlasting joy brimming out once again, even though Sans could still see the ache hiding just beneath. “BUT IT’S NOT SO BAD! I MEET SOME REALLY INTERESTING PEOPLE AND I GET TO SEE ALL THE DIFFERENT DISHES AND SOMETIMES I GET TO GO TO THE KITCHEN AND SEE HOW THEY MAKE THE FOOD! I CAN LEARN THIS WAY, SANS!”

But nothing could hide it. Not now that Sans had seen it, just a glimpse of it. Seen what he should have seen a long, long time ago.

“it really hurts you, when that stuff happens,” he murmured. “doesn’t it?”

Papyrus’s smile slipped again. Sans hated himself for it, but he couldn’t take it back. Not when Papyrus looked down at his plate and fiddled with his fingers. “A LITTLE. BUT I’M ALRIGHT, SANS.”

“no, you’re not.”

Papyrus met his eyes, frowned, and held his head high.

“WELL, I’M ME, AND YOU’RE NOT ME, AND I SAY I’M ALRIGHT,” he replied. His face softened again. “AND JUST BECAUSE THINGS AREN’T PERFECT NOW DOESN’T MEAN THEY WON’T GET BETTER.”

And once more, Papyrus’s smile grew. Just like it always did. Just like he always forced it to do, even when his manager yelled at him, even when his co-workers tormented him, even when _those blasted humans sent him home with cracks in his bones_ … He still made himself smile.

Just like he smiled now.

“UNDYNE ALWAYS TOLD ME THAT YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE TO GET TO THE TOP! I’M STARTING SOMEWHERE, SO I’M ON MY WAY TO THE TOP!”

He reached across the table and laid one of his hands over Sans’s. Sans let go of the table, but didn’t move away from the soft touch of his brother’s thumb rubbing over the back of his hand.

“DON’T WORRY, SANS,” Papyrus said, his voice as quiet and reassuring as it had ever been. His smile looked so real Sans could almost believe it was. “IT WILL BE OKAY. WE JUST NEED TO KEEP GOING.”

Sans looked at him. He just looked at him. His brother. His precious brother, the only person in the world that really mattered. And even if it was the hardest thing he had ever done, he managed to nod.

Papyrus smiled wider, then sat back in his seat and started eating once again.

Sans picked up his own fork and brought slow, steady bites up to his mouth.

Maybe things would get better. Maybe Papyrus would get a better job and be around people who were actually nice to them. Maybe the humans would stop looking at them like freaks and everyone really would live in some semblance of peace.

But how long would it take?

And how long would it be until the kid decided it was time to throw them back Underground?

Sans might have given up on trying a long time ago, but Papyrus hadn’t. And he wouldn’t. He didn’t know about the resets, he didn’t know that no matter what he did, it wouldn’t make a difference. He could own his own restaurant and have all the monster and human customers in the world. And it could all be gone the next day.

He had come so far. He had tried so hard. He had put on his smiling face every day, no matter how hard things got, he had held on when things seemed hopeless, he had—

Sans watched him, watched as he ate and cleared the table and hummed while he washed the dishes. Just as he did every night. Just as he had done every night since he started that blasted job.

Was that smile ever real?

If he had questioned himself before, if Sans _hadn’t known_ … did he still do it now?

How much had Sans missed? How much was he _still_ missing? How much had his brother suffered, and Sans hadn’t done a thing to stop it?

Nothing had changed. They had reached the Surface, they had been here six months, but nothing had changed. How many times had he watched Papyrus die? How many times had he watched the human slaughter him then go on their merry way? _How many times had he failed his brother?_

How many times had humans hurt him?

How many times had _one_ human hurt him?

And they were still there. They walked around like they had done nothing wrong, they called themself Papyrus’s “best human friend” and they hugged him and played with him like they had never _killed him in cold blood._

And there was nothing Sans could do.

Any day, they could reset. Any day, they could send them all back Underground.

Any day, they could destroy the progress Papyrus had made. They could make it even worse for him. Even if Sans could find a way to help him now, it wouldn’t do a bit of good.

“SANS?”

Sans’s head jerked up, and it took his eyes a few seconds to settle on Papyrus again where he stood in front of the sink, browbone furrowed, frowning.

“ARE YOU ALRIGHT? YOU’RE JUST STANDING THERE,” he said, somewhere between worried and exasperated. “IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO, WHY DON’T YOU DRY THE DISHES? IT WILL GO MUCH FASTER WITH BOTH OF US. THEN YOU COULD SHOW ME THAT MOVIE YOU LIKED!”

Papyrus never liked any of the movies Sans wanted to show him. Usually, Sans didn’t even try.

But Papyrus was smiling now, still frustrated, still more than a little concerned. And Sans had no doubt he would sit through an entire hour and a half of bad jokes and half-baked plot lines just to make Sans smile, too.

So Sans smiled.

“sounds good, bro.”

Papyrus washed the last of the dishes, and Sans dried them. Then they flopped down on the couch with a bag of microwave popcorn and a terrible movie that made Sans laugh and Papyrus cringe at least once every two minutes.

But Sans’s eyes never stopped drifting to his brother, and even when they finally parted ways to go to sleep, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about everything he must have missed. Everything he must still be missing. Every way that he hadn’t protected his brother. Everything he could do now to make up for it.

Everything that would be lost when one human kid finally got bored and took it all away.


	6. Tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merci beaucoup, mes amis. :)
> 
> Did I warn for violence in this story? Well, in case I didn't ... yeah. Violence warning.

“WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET SOME ICE CREAM? WE SHOULD GET SOME ICE CREAM. I HEAR THAT IS WHAT HUMANS DO WHEN IT’S HOT OUTSIDE, AND IT HAS BEEN GETTING HOTTER AND HOTTER. ISN’T IT AMAZING? IT NEVER GOT ANY HOTTER IN SNOWDIN, IT WAS JUST COLD ALL THE TIME, WHICH WAS FINE, BUT I LIKE IT MUCH BETTER WHEN IT CHANGES! YES! ICE CREAM! THAT IS A WONDERFUL IDEA! DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE COULD BUY SOME, HUMAN FRISK?”

Frisk put a finger to their lips, hummed, then pulled out their phone from their pocket and started searching for ice cream shops nearby while Papyrus watched over their shoulder.

Sans strolled along just to their right, his eyes drifting between them, softening when they fell on his brother, dressed in his favorite “battle body” rather than his overly-plain work uniform, grinning like Sans hadn’t seen in weeks.

It was the first time Papyrus had actually managed to get time off. He hadn’t dared ask before now—and frankly, he _wouldn’t_ have asked if Frisk hadn’t told them that the school was letting them out early for parent-teacher conferences and they would have the afternoon free.

So Papyrus asked. And to his shock, and Sans’s, his boss agreed.

With the promise that he would work an extra three hours the next day, but still.

Sans had expected to simply wish them well and head off to his own job, but Papyrus told them that the kid invited him along as well. He had no idea why the kid would want _him_ along, considering that they hadn’t exchanged more than a few words in months, but it was far too difficult to say no when Papyrus looked at him with such excited eyes.

It may have been difficult for Papyrus to get time off, but Sans had been slacking for years, and had mastered the technique of getting out of work early without his boss even realizing what he was doing.

And even though he could think of much better ways to spend a free afternoon, if Papyrus wanted to take his “best human friend” out to town, then that’s what they would do.

Even though Papyrus decided on ice cream, he had never managed to walk past a line of shops without getting distracted. First they passed an antique store, and Papyrus dragged both of them inside, examining the old furniture and knick-knacks while the old lady at the counter watched them with narrowed eyes and fidgeting hands. Then it was the clothing store, where Papyrus tried on ten different hats before a shop attendant asked them to buy something or leave. When the cashier at the electronics shop threatened to call the police if they didn’t scram, Sans came very close to putting a tack on his chair behind the counter.

But then Papyrus burst out into a speech about how much he loved all the different types of technology, and Sans just focused on getting all three of them out before the cashier actually dialed the number on the phone in his hand.

Papyrus was still smiling, though, when they walked out the front doors and back onto the sidewalk. Even Frisk was grinning a little, though their smile looked sad and they hadn’t said a word since the antique store. Sans could almost smile himself, away from the hard stares of the other customers. It was far from what he would call a good day. But Papyrus was happy, and maybe they could just get their ice cream and “hang out” in peace.

Then Sans turned back to face the sidewalk ahead of them.

And stopped dead.

Standing in front of them were three humans.

That was nothing new. There were apparently billions of humans on this planet, and thousands in this town alone, even if this particular street seemed mostly empty at the moment. But while at least half the humans they passed looked at them with disdain, there was something in particular about these three. Most notably, the fact that they had stopped in the sidewalk for no apparent reason, and with the three of them side by side, they completely blocked the way.

And they were all staring right at Papyrus.

Sans stiffened. At his side, Papyrus and Frisk froze, too. But while Frisk just looked nervous, Papyrus’s expression had gone completely blank, sockets wide with only a tiny furrow between them, his mouth parted, his breaths brief and sharp.

Like he was afraid.

Someone barked a laugh, and Sans turned to find the three humans—two male, one female, by the looks of it—peering a little bit closer.

The human in front put one hand on his hip, his eyebrow raised.

“Hey, guys … I think our friend’s back,” he drawled, without taking his eyes off Papyrus. He glanced to Sans, then to Frisk. “And he brought some buddies.”

Sans hadn’t felt this tense in weeks. Papyrus straightened, but smiled, as tight and anxious as that smile looked.

“OH. HELLO. I THINK WE’VE MET BEFORE, HAVEN’T WE?”

“Sure have,” the human replied with a chuckle. The human at his left snickered. The human at his right rolled her eyes. “Guess you didn’t get the message last time, bud. We don’t want your kind here.”

Sans’s hands twitched in his pockets. Frisk shifted a little closer to Papyrus. Papyrus fidgeted, and his smile slipped.

“WELL … I’M SORRY YOU FEEL THAT WAY.” He pushed his smile up, even though it was shaky, even though Sans could look at him and _see_ the glimmers of fear, he had always been afraid, hadn’t he, he hid it so well but he was still _afraid._ “ BUT I STILL THINK WE CAN BE FRIENDS. I JUST DON’T THINK WE CAN DO IT WHILE YOU’RE HITTING ME WITH THOSE METAL BARS.”

The humans didn’t have any metal bars now. That made sense, Sans supposed. It would be a little hard to carry metal bars wherever you went.

So why had they had them when they found Papyrus?

Was this something they did a lot? Had they done it before?

Did they know Papyrus took that route home?

Were they going to do it again?

Even as Sans’s mind swirled, Papyrus smiled wider, taking a step forward and holding out his gloved hand.

“SO LET’S TRY AGAIN. HELLO! I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS. WHAT ARE YOUR NAMES?”

The female human curled her lip, eying him in disgust. “Are you _mocking_ us?”

Papyrus stiffened again. His hand hesitated, then fell back to his side. “NO, I … I’M GREETING YOU. IS THIS NOT A NORMAL GREETING FOR HUMANS?”The second male human snorted. But before he could respond, Sans caught his eye, flashing his own blue just long enough for them to see, drawing all three humans’ attention to him in under a second.

“hey, buddy,” he said, voice even. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Frisk shudder. “why dont you take walk, okay? blow off some steam. somewhere far away from here.”

The female human’s eyes narrowed, and a touch of wariness flashed across her face. The first human laughed, looking Sans up and down like he might look at a five-year-old who had just told him he was mean.

“Ooh, tough guy, ain’t he?” he asked, without looking at his friends. “C’mon, guys, I think it’s time we teach these freaks that they can’t just waltz right in here and take everything _we_ worked so hard for.”

Sans was very, very tempted to comment on the fact that Papyrus probably worked more in a week than these three did in year.

But they were moving forward now, first the one in the center, then the other two right behind him. And suddenly Sans was far more aware of the fact that these were three fully-grown humans, the same kind of fully-grown humans who perpetrated the monster attacks that featured on the news several times a week, _the same three fully-grown humans who hurt his brother_ —

And then it didn’t matter. They were here. They were getting closer.

And the kid, the human kid, the kid who had caused him so much grief, who had been strong enough to slaughter every monster in the Underground a hundred times over—

They couldn’t do anything.

Because here, they were just a scrawny kid. And those three could take them down in a second.

Papyrus held out his hand, and a blue bone faded into being in front of them, then more, slamming themselves into the ground like a fence. The humans stopped, wide-eyed. Had they ever seen blue attacks before? The second male reached forward and poked one, then yanked his hand back with a wince. Nope, apparently not.

“THEY WON’T HURT YOU IF YOU DON’T MOVE,” Papyrus said, still a little shaky, but far more assured. “WE JUST WANT TO LEAVE. WE DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU.”

“Like a bunch of weak monsters could hurt _us_?” the first human spat. He held up a fist and slammed it down into the bone. His teeth gritted, but the bone dissolved.

Three grown humans, when one would already be more than enough to take them down.

In seconds, the other two humans had taken the hint and began kicking down the bones. Papyrus summoned more, but they kicked them down as well, dodging the others, their HP barely dented. Papyrus would fight back, he _could_ fight back, but he’d never really hurt them. They could still attack, they could always attack, they _had_ attacked, they’d attacked his brother, they were attacking him again, they—

The first human slipped the bones, his hand in the air, curled into a fist, and even though he was a good few inches shorter than Papyrus, he looked like a giant.

Then something blue began to glow in his chest.

And he stopped.

He blinked. He struggled, trying to move. Then he looked down at his chest, at the blue glow, and his frustration turned to fear. He jerked his head to face his friends, his mouth open, words ready to fall from his lips.

Before he could get out a single one, he went flying to the side and slammed into the brick wall of the store.

Papyrus tensed, a tiny whimper of distress slipping past his teeth.

And Sans just stood there, one hand outstretched as he released the human’s SOUL and let him fall to the ground, clutching his side.

The other two stiffened before moving ahead, faster, angry, shouting, but Sans didn’t hear them. They were getting closer, and he couldn’t let them get closer. They couldn’t get to Papyrus. They would _not_ hurt Papyrus.

One went down to the sidewalk, face-first, hard enough to bloody his nose. The last one curled her hand into a fist, teeth gritted despite the fear in her eyes. He gripped her SOUL and shoved her back, along the near-empty sidewalk, until she slammed into a mailbox, sliding down to the ground with a grunt of pain.

Sans scanned the street, searching for anyone else, maybe they had backup, maybe someone had been hiding, there were billions of them here, _billions_ of humans who hated them, billions of humans who could turn them to dust in seconds if he wasn’t careful, all it took was _one_ and—

Something touched his arm.

Sans spun around, hand out, grabbing the SOUL and throwing it to the right.

It whimpered as it crashed into the brick wall.

It fell to the ground, only feet away from the first human, a crumpled heap on the sidewalk. Sans’s browbone lowered, one eye dark and the other flashing yellow and blue, his teeth gritted and his breath coming in huffs.

Then he paused.

And he looked.

He looked at the blue and the pink of the human’s shirt. At the deep brown of their hair, the paler brown of their skin. The same colors that contrasted against the snow as they shambled toward Papyrus, knife in hand, ready to slice off his head.

Then they whimpered again, curling up a little smaller, one hand reaching out to clutch at the tear in their sleeve, the bloodied scrape on their arm.

Papyrus scrambled forward, and before Sans could say a word, he was at the human’s side, whispering reassurances, laying his glowing hands against their wounded side to heal them.

Heal them.

Heal the human.

“IT’S ALRIGHT, HUMAN FRISK, YOU’RE GOING TO BE ALRIGHT, THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL HAVE YOU GOOD AS NEW, NO NEED TO WORRY, YOU’LL BE FINE, I’M SURE SANS DIDN’T MEAN TO, HE WOULDN’T HURT YOU, HE’D NEVER HURT YOU, HE—”

Frisk.

Tori’s kid.

Papyrus’s “best human friend.”

Clutching one arm against them, far more limp than an arm should be, blood seeping through the fabric as their face contorted in pain.

He had seen this before.

Where the _hell_ had he seen this before?

Had they gotten this far last time? Had this same group of humans attacked them? Had he fought back? He had seen them kill, he had seen them wipe out all his friends, he had seen them wander through the Underground as if killing was the only thing that mattered, and …

… he had seen them in pain. He had seen them suffer.

He had seen them die.

He didn’t know where or when, but he had seen them die.

No. They had killed, he was sure of that, they had killed, but they hadn’t … but … he could remember it. In the back of his mind. The brief flash of concern, early on, when a monster attacked them and they fell and for a second he thought that god, what if the lady behind the door finds out? Would she still talk to him? Would she find out he had broken his promise? Would she—

And that was where the thought ended.

Because then the kid came back, good as new, _alive_. And even if he didn’t remember it, even if it only lingered in his dreams, in the knowledge, the certainty, that _they_ were the one who could keep coming back, who could reset the whole world on a whim. And it didn’t matter how many times they died. They would always be back. Always.

But they had died. They had been hurt.

He had hurt them.

And now Papyrus crouched at their side, his hands running over their injuries, healing magic flowing from him into the kid.

Frisk.

The kid who, to everyone else, had never hurt a fly.

Papyrus’s hands pulled back, and Frisk stretched their arm, twisting their wrist, testing it as relief spread across their face. Papyrus patted their back and ran a hand over their hair, then turned his head, peering over his shoulder.

At Sans.

His sockets shining with unshed tears.

Sans’s feet moved before he could speak. Before he could even _begin_ to think of anything he could say that would make this make sense. Even to himself. He spun around and he ran, even though he hated running, even though his legs burned with every long step he took.

Out of the corner of his eye, Papyrus reached out to him, ready to stop him, before pulling back and approaching the other three humans collapsed on the ground, hands aglow with magic, ready to heal them, too.

Sans ran. He wasn’t fast, he knew Papyrus—even the kid, probably—could have caught him if they wanted. They didn’t. He could have taken a shortcut. He didn’t. He just kept running until the apartment came into sight, then he scrambled up the stairs and paused long enough to dig his key out of his pocket before bursting through the door.

He didn’t notice his heaving breaths until he slammed it hard behind him.

His whole body trembled, his bones rattling against one another, and he came very, very close to collapsing then and there. But by sheer force of will, he stumbled across the living room and collapsed on the ragged old couch he had found a while after they moved in. It was faded and stained and all the edges of the fabric were frayed, but it was comfortable enough for Sans to fall asleep on it while watching TV in the evenings.

Maybe he would fall asleep now.

He wanted to fall asleep. But his sockets refused to shut.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring at the floor, his mind blanker than it had been in years—that he remembered, at least. But that didn’t mean much. Part of him wanted to scream until his voice broke, scream for everything, scream for nothing, scream because maybe it would let out just a little of what had been building up inside him since this whole mess began. The other part of him just wanted to sit there and never move again.

That part was louder.

Sometime later—maybe minutes, maybe hours, the shades were down and Sans wasn’t paying attention anyway—the lock on the front door clicked, as if someone were trying to unlock it only to realize it had never been locked in the first place. A second later, the door opened. Footsteps moved inside. And the door shut.

Sans didn’t lift his head.

He didn’t need to.

For more than a minute, neither of them spoke. Sans kept his eyes locked on the floor, noting every tiny stain in the carpet that likely hadn’t been cleaned in over a decade, the spots he already knew stunk if you put your face close enough.

“I TOOK THEM HOME.”

Sans squeezed his hands tighter, and only just realized that he was clasping them in his lap. He could hear Papyrus fidgeting, his boots scuffing against the carpet.

“THEY TOLD TORIEL THAT … THAT IT WAS THE HUMANS WHO HURT THEM.”

He sounded so quiet, so confused, so timid and scared and …

“THEY TOLD ME TO TELL YOU … THAT IT’S OKAY. THEY’RE NOT MAD,” Papyrus went on, and Sans could just see his brow furrowing, his face completely lost. “THEY SAID THEY … THEY UNDERSTAND.”

Sans squeezed his hands so tight they hurt. He didn’t let go. The pain kept him grounded enough to remind him that he was here. Now. That this was real.

He was living in this universe. Not any of the others. This one.

With Frisk, the kid who had broken the Barrier and set all monsters free.

“SANS?”

Sans’s breath came sharper, harder, and his hands clenched so tight now they trembled. He was _here._ This was _now._ He wasn’t anywhere else, the kid wasn’t going to kill him, the kid hadn’t killed anyone. But they could. They could change their mind at any second.

And Papyrus was still looking at him. Looking at him with the same hurt that spread across his face every time the human sliced off his head.

“SANS, LOOK AT ME. PLEASE.”

He didn’t look up. He _couldn’t_ look up. He couldn’t see the creases on Papyrus’s face, he couldn’t see his wide eyes, the pain he could never quite hide when he saw people doing bad things and nothing he did could stop it.

“WHY DID YOU … WHY WOULD YOU …” Papyrus trailed off. “IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, RIGHT? YOU DIDN’T ATTACK THEM ON PURPOSE.”

He couldn’t see the hope. The hope that never died.

Papyrus fidgeted more.

“EXCEPT … YOU HARDLY EVER USE YOUR ATTACKS, SO IT’S NOT JUST REFLEX …”

He wasn’t stupid. Sans didn’t care what anyone said, his brother was kind and innocent and pure and a little naive, but he was never _stupid._ He saw. He saw things no one else could see. Even when Sans had been blind to his pain for years.

Papyrus took a step forward, then another. Then he paused, and Sans didn’t need to look up to feel the soft eyes burning into him, concerned yet fearful, clinging to that shred of hope as if it were the only thing holding him up above an abyss.

“BUT … YOU WOULDN’T TRY TO HURT FRISK,” he said, so quiet it hardly sounded like him anymore. “YOU WOULDN’T HURT MY FRIEND.”

One second. Two seconds. Three.

“WOULD YOU?”

His feet shifted over the floor, ready to step forward again, maybe sit down beside him on the couch and lay a hand on his shoulder. But before he could move, Sans threw himself out of his seat and ran down the hall, back toward his room.

“SANS? SANS!”

The second he was inside, Sans let his body collapse against the door, slamming it shut as he slid down to the carpet, reaching a limp arm up to flick the lock shut.

His legs curled up to his chest, his sockets wide, his arms wrapped around his knees. He felt Papyrus’s feet pound on the floor, felt his soft knocks and his booming voice pleading with him to come out and talk. But Sans didn’t respond. He didn’t even move.

He stayed there until Papyrus went silent, and a minute later, sighed and walked away.

He stayed there and listened to the clanking of pots and pans, of the carpet shifting as Papyrus laid what Sans could guess was a plate of food just outside his door. He stayed as the lights turned off and Papyrus went to bed. Then, at last, Sans pushed himself away from the door and crawled across the room to collapse against his mattress by the wall, empty and tired and alone.

It wasn’t until long after his sockets finally fell shut that Sans realized that, for the first time in years, he had forgotten to read his brother a bedtime story.


	7. Sick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for more-obvious-than-usual depression and vague suicide ideation. Yeah, I think this is the epitome of the depression in this fic.

Pain.

Dull, aching pain, in every one of his bones. Was that what his bones were made of now? Solid pain? That felt about right. He had always thought he was made of magic and dust, but hey, he had been wrong before.

For a second, he thought the kid had actually killed him. That they had kept going even though they had always stopped, they had killed everyone and now they were going to kill him, too. He was lying on the floor of the golden hall, while the kid stood in front of him with a red-lined knife. Maybe the kid had reset and killed everyone and beat him and he just hadn’t noticed until now.

Except this pain was different.

This pain was deep, as if it had always been there. There was no wound. No point of impact. It was like it had come from inside him. A little like the hangover, except … he hadn’t drunk anything, had he?

The kid had been sick once—a cold or the flu or pneumonia or the Black Plague or something like that—and it had sounded a bit like what he felt now, from how Tori described it. Except monsters didn’t get sick. Or maybe they did now. Weren’t there viruses up here or something? He understood the concept, microorganisms, infections, but it had all been theoretical before. No monster had ever caught a virus—Mettaton got a computer virus once, but Sans didn’t think that counted. Could they catch viruses if their bodies weren’t even made of the same stuff?

Did it really matter? Either way, he felt like absolute crap, and if what he had heard about human illnesses was true, it wasn’t going to go away anytime soon.

Sleep. That was what Tori said the kid needed. Sleep and rest and … fluids, right? That would mean getting up. Well, two out of three wasn’t bad. Sleep and rest. He could do that.

What day was it again?

He didn’t know how long it took before he managed to reach across his mattress and grab his phone, charging close to the wall, and turned it on. It was some kind of miracle he didn’t tap the wrong numbers when he reached the keypad. He brought the phone to the side of his skull and listened to it ring twice before one of his bosses picked up.

He didn’t even remember which one. He just said that he was sick, and luckily, the boss in question—that was a woman’s voice, wasn’t it?—didn’t know enough about monsters to ask how.

It was Wednesday, he was pretty sure. Probably. He had three different jobs on Wednesday, and three different bosses. He called all five bosses, just in case. Then he dropped his phone next to his mattress, not bothering to plug it back in. His sockets shut, and he let out a long sigh as he settled into the pillow.

But as much as he wanted to sleep, he couldn’t.

Why couldn’t he sleep? Sleep had always come easily before. It was the one thing he could count on, being able to pass out at a moment’s notice, just let go and _forget_ about everything for a while, even if his dreams rarely gave him any peace. But even as the ache in his bones began to fade, even as it settled on his chest, heavy and suffocating and _he would give anything to just be hungover right now,_ his mind wouldn’t let him drift away.

Then he heard the knock on his door, and his sockets fluttered open.

Just one knock at first, quieter than usual. Then another when he didn’t respond. The doorknob jiggled, but didn’t turn. Right. He had locked it yesterday. He thought about unlocking it—this wasn’t some stranger, he knew who it was, and he _never_ locked him out—but to do that, he would have to get out of bed. He would have to cross the room.

He would have to see Papyrus’s face, looking at him with that same painful whirlpool of emotions.

Sans stayed where he was.

“SANS? ARE YOU AWAKE?”

It crossed Sans’s mind to respond. Papyrus didn’t sound angry. But he hadn’t been angry yesterday, either. Papyrus was never angry for long. Because he always thought about it, he always figured out why people did what they did and then he understood and got worried and tried to help them. No matter who they were. No matter whether they deserved his concern.

Papyrus wasn’t angry at him. He just wanted to help him. Just like he wanted to help everybody.

Sans didn’t respond. And after a minute, Papyrus’s boots padded away down the hall.

It must have been half an hour later that another knock came, a little louder than the first, but still quiet and unsure. Papyrus’s knocks should never be unsure.

But Sans said nothing. Another knock came, unanswered, and at last, Papyrus sighed.

“IT’S OKAY IF … IF YOU DON’T WANT TO TALK TO ME. BUT … PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU’RE OKAY.”

Sans let out a trembling breath and put a hand to his forehead. Papyrus shifted behind the door.

“I KNOW THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO TALK TO ME A LITTLE, BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING ELSE,” he went on. “JUST … ‘HI,’ OR … ‘SUP.’ OR A JOKE. A REALLY BAD JOKE. YOU CAN MAKE A REALLY BAD JOKE AND I WON’T EVEN TELL YOU HOW BAD IT IS.”

Sans turned his head toward the door, but every joke he thought of died in his throat. He tried. He tried again and again and again. But nothing came.

 _Him,_ out of jokes. Huh. Well that was just …

… he couldn’t even think of a good pun for that.

Papyrus didn’t say anything else. He shuffled a bit more, and Sans was pretty sure he heard him hum in concern. But he didn’t speak. Finally, he walked away again, and Sans was left alone.

He didn’t have a clock in his room—just his phone, sitting next to his mattress, face-down—but he knew it had to be long past time for Papyrus to go to work. But he never heard the front door. And every half-hour or so, without fail, Papyrus came to his door and knocked again, giving Sans new incentive to come out. Fresh spaghetti. A new physics documentary on TV. Two whole bottles of ketchup, right out of the fridge, just for him. Papyrus even promised not to look disgusted if he chugged them down.

Sans never got up.

And Papyrus never went to work.

This was ridiculous. He was worrying his brother, he was making him miss work when the barely held down the job in the first place. And as much as that job made him miserable, as much as Sans hated his boss and every human in that stupid restaurant that ever gave him so much as a sideways glance, Papyrus wanted that job. He had worked hard for that job. And now Sans was making him take a day off when they both knew he could scarcely afford it.

Not to mention missing his own jobs. Four jobs. Or three. Or five. Whatever. He doubted he would lose them for one sick day, but he was paid by the hour. A day off work meant a day without pay.

He was making them both suffer for this.

And he had promised he would never, ever make Papyrus suffer for stupid things that weren’t his fault.

He should get up. He should really get up. Papyrus was worried, and every minute Sans lay there, he got more worried. Even if he couldn’t get up, he could at least respond. But every time Papyrus came to the door, he couldn’t make a sound come out. He tried, he tried over and over again, but his voice refused to respond.

Make a joke. Come on, he could think of one joke, couldn’t he? Even if it was terrible, even if it didn’t make any sense. He always made jokes at times like this, that made it better, right?

But Papyrus hated his jokes. He had always hated his jokes, but Sans didn’t care, did he? Only he did. Papyrus always stomped his foot and whined when Sans made bad puns, even when he was really little and Sans could barely pronounce his puns right— _you’re da cooles bruder eber, tibee-ah hones_ —but Papyrus understood them anyway— _SANS, THAT WAS TERRIBLE!_ —and he crossed his arms and pouted but he was still smiling, he always smiled, so Sans kept doing it. If he could see that smile, just for a _second,_ it was worth it.

He wanted to see that smile now.

He didn’t deserve that smile. He didn’t deserve the way it wrapped him in thick warmth, as cozy as a blanket, he didn’t deserve the way it let him forget for just a second that none of this mattered, because if Papyrus was smiling, then it _did_ matter, it always mattered, make Papyrus smile, make him happy, take care of him, he’s your responsibility, Sans, he won’t take care of himself, he can’t take care of himself, he’s too—

But he could take care of himself.

He had a job. It didn’t pay much, but it was an income. An income that he could use to support himself if he wanted. And even though the job sucked, even though Sans would have done anything to help Papyrus work someplace that actually _deserved_ him, Papyrus kept going. He carried on, even when it was difficult. He never gave up.

And what had Sans done for him all this time, anyway? If Papyrus had really been doubting himself, if he had really hurt so bad for so long and Sans _hadn’t even noticed_ …

What kind of brother was he, not to notice if he was in pain?

How could he claim to have cared for him all these years, when Papyrus was the whole reason he tried, when Papyrus had been pretending everything was alright just so _Sans_ didn’t have to deal with it?

How could he claim to be taking care of him now?

A groan fell from his throat before he could stop it, and he stared at the ceiling like it might reach down and swallow him up.

Worthless. Stupid and worthless and lazy and god, he was so tired. He just wanted to sleep. He could do that, couldn’t he? He could sleep. He could close his eyes and go to sleep and not wake up for a long time. Or ever. He could just keep on sleeping, then he wouldn’t ever have to wake up, he wouldn’t have to talk or make jokes or walk around or keep on smiling with his stupid face with its stupid grin and he wouldn’t have to see Papyrus looking at him like that ever again.

Except he would. Because it didn’t matter what happened to him now. He would just wake up in Snowdin again and he’d barely remember all of this beyond a vague sense of deja vu and the certainty that it _had_ happened, because the readings didn’t lie.

And he’d go in his lab and he’d see that photo, probably snapped countless resets ago, and it would be worth more than those readings ever were.

He’d see the life he had lost. The life he might have a thousand times again. The life he would never truly get to live, because it could be yanked away from him at anytime.

And for all he knew, he had done something a thousand resets ago that made him deserve it.

But Papyrus hadn’t.

Papyrus didn’t deserve any of this. Papyrus deserved the best the world had to offer. And as far as he knew, he could still get it.

That was how it should be.

That was how it should _always_ be.

Sans would feel like this a thousand times over if he thought it would help.

Even if it hadn’t done a flippin’ thing so far.

His sockets shut and his body sunk deep into the mattress. If he listened very closely, he could hear Papyrus bustling around downstairs, probably making lunch or dinner or a snack or a dessert or just keeping busy, as he always did. Even when Sans couldn’t bring himself to lift a finger.

He was the best brother Sans could have asked for.

And far more than he would ever deserve.

He lay there, still and silent, but it wasn’t until hours later that he finally drifted back to sleep.


	8. Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for disturbing elements? I guess that's what you'd call it ...
> 
> Thanks, everyone!!

Snow. Snow everywhere.

There was always snow everywhere, this was _Snowed-In,_ after all. But this was different. There were no people, no colors, just white, stretching out forever.

And red.

A little dab of red and orange, standing in the middle of the white. Waiting.

Then there were sounds. The crunching of feet in the snow, closer and closer, steady, shambling steps. And then Sans could see blue and pink. And brown.

And silver.

The glint of a blade clutched in a dusty hand.

He had seen it a hundred times. Two hundred, three hundred, probably. He had stopped trying to move. He had stopped screaming. Now he just stood there, watching from a distance, his SOUL dying a little more with each step the blue and pink shape took.

Papyrus’s voice broke through the sound of the wind, bright and loud and hopeful and _alive._ The words didn’t matter anymore. The words never changed.

The human never stopped.

And when the knife slashed through the air, when Papyrus’s head fell to the ground and his body dissolved into dust, Sans felt nothing.

Nothing.

He watched his brother die, and it was like watching a movie.

Papyrus’s head spoke, sad yet hopeful. The human walked away. And Sans found himself moving, without thought or intention. He couldn’t even feel his feet. He was just moving, closer and closer.

The head was still there. It should have turned to dust by now. It _always_ turned to dust before the human left. But now it just sat there.

And the closer Sans got, the more he could see the wide-open sockets, just as alive and pained as before.

Locked on him.

Sans stopped.

And what was left of Papyrus stared up at him, looking for all the world like a babybones who had just realized the world wasn’t the paradise he had imagined.

“YOU JUST LET IT HAPPEN, SANS.”

The jaw moved all wrong, pressed against the snow, unable to go far down, but the words came out just as clear. Like Papyrus was speaking right into his head.

“YOU DIDN’T EVEN TRY TO STOP THEM,” it went on, and it hurt, god, that voice hurt, Sans could hear the tears in Papyrus’s throat even though he didn’t _have_ a throat, there was nothing left, just that head, watching him, sockets wide, browbone furrowed, confused, pained, betrayed. “YOU JUST STOOD THERE. YOU DIDN’T EVEN TRY.”

He knew it wasn’t real. It had happened too often, he could tell the difference, he _knew_ this wasn’t Papyrus.

But he didn’t know, did he? All it had ever been was dreams. Dreams that felt like reality. Dreams that might have been memories, dreams that might have been real resets. Had the kid done it again? Had they reset? Had Sans just forgotten waking up in his house, going to his guard post, meeting them, following them, threatening them, begging Papyrus to go home even though it never, _ever_ worked?

Was this real?

Did Papyrus know that he had never made it stop?

“pap … papyrus …” he breathed, trying to think of something to say, _anything_ to say, anything that would make his brother’s head stop looking at him with those aching eyes.

“YOU LET THEM KILL ME,” Papyrus went on, and now there _were_ tears, real tears slipping down his cheekbones as they broke his voice. “YOU LET THEM KILL EVERYBODY. OVER AND OVER AND OVER.”

The tears fell on the snow, some of them freezing at the base of his jaw.

Sans tried to step back, but his feet wouldn’t move. He tried to turn, but his body remained frozen. Could he freeze? Was he stuck there, staring at Papyrus’s head, why hadn’t he turned to dust, he always turned to dust, just turn to dust and finish it all, just let it end and go back to the beginning so he could forget it, but he would never forget it and it would happen over and over.

“WHY, SANS?” Papyrus begged. “WHY CAN’T YOU SAVE ANYBODY?”

Sans pulled harder, but his body still refused. And Papyrus wouldn’t stop staring at him, wouldn’t stop crying, wouldn’t stop the faint whimpers escaping from a throat he no longer had.

“WHY? WHY?”

Stop it. Just let him go, let him leave, get him the hell out of here, he just wanted it to _end._

“WHY, SANS?”

Stop it, stop it, _stop it._

“SANS?”

Sans squeezed his eyes shut.

Then he jerked up in bed, magic flaring around him, a hand already over his mouth to muffle his scream.

Dark. Everything was dark, and blue, dark and blue and the wall and the window and the moonlight and—

Moonlight.

There was no moon in the Underground.

The Surface. They were on the Surface. Again. Again, How many times had they been there before? Was this a dream, too? Was he going to wake up in Snowdin next? No, of course he would wake up in Snowdin, he always woke up in Snowdin, woke up and forgot everything except he _didn’t_ forget, not really, not all the way, it had all happened a thousand times and he _knew_ —

“SANS?”

Sans’s breath came in sharper gasps, jerking his head from side to side as his magic began to calm and the room went dark again. Papyrus. Where was Papyrus? Was that in his head, too? Was he safe? Was he dead? Could they even get to the Surface if he was dead?

“SANS?” Papyrus’s voice came again. Muffled. Distant. Behind something. What was he behind? Where was he? He was here, he was alive, he was—

Something banged on wood, and Sans turned his head.

“SANS, OPEN THE DOOR! PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR!”

Sans couldn’t move. He could just stare, trying to settle his mind, settle his eyes, he was in his room, in Snowdin, no, on the Surface, they were on the Surface, they had made it out, they were all there, they were all safe, they were okay, Papyrus was alive, alive, alive, no, dead, alive, dead, alive, dead, dead, _dead_ —

“SANS, PLEASE LET ME IN!”

He couldn’t get enough air in his chest. Lungs, no, he didn’t have lungs, he was a _skeleton,_ he didn’t even need to breathe, but it was nice, it was calming, so why couldn’t he do it, why couldn’t he breathe, why was everything spinning and he was alone, he always alone, for the rest of his life he would be alone, because Papyrus would _always_ die—

The door thudded. Sans jerked his head up. It thudded again. Then one more time, hard.

The lock snapped.

And the door flew open.

There stood Papyrus, in his bright red pajamas, one knee still in the air from his kick, arms close to his chest and brow tight with determination.

He looked around the room, searching for the threat, his brow hard as if he might actually fight whoever was in there, even if Sans knew he would never do any worse than knock them down. But within seconds, his eyes fell on Sans and his arms dropped to his sides.

His brow rose. His leg lowered. His whole face softened as his sockets grew wide.

Alive. Alive and looking at him and breathing and moving and _alive._

“SANS …”

Sans shook so hard his bones rattled, and he crawled forward on the mattress, his legs trembling and his breath coming in gasps. “papyrus … papyrus …”

Papyrus all but ran across the room, dropping to his knees just in front of Sans’s makeshift bed. His hands twitched at his sides, ready to reach out for him, but Papyrus held himself back. Even in the dark, Sans could make out the crease of his browbone, his mouth curved into a worried frown.

“BROTHER … BROTHER, WHAT’S—”

But before he could get out another sound, Sans threw himself forward and squeezed him tight.

Tears slipped from his sockets, streaming down his face, soaking into his brother’s shirt, his arms trembling as he pressed himself as close as he could into Papyrus’s chest. It hurt, it must hurt Papyrus, too, he didn’t want to hurt Papyrus, but he couldn’t let him go, he couldn’t get close enough, he was alive, he was okay, he was _right there_ but it was _never going to last._

“SANS? SANS, WHAT’S WRONG?” Papyrus asked, running his hands over Sans’s skull, then his arms and shoulders, checking him for injuries, but he was fine, they were both _fine,_ they were here and they were alive and they were …

Sans’s breath hitched, and the tears came faster, and at last, his brother’s hands paused before wrapping around him in a gentle hug.

“SANS …”

He sounded so sad. So scared. Papyrus should never sound sad or scared, he should always be smiling, laughing, he should be relaxed and safe and happy, Sans would have done anything to make him happy, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t.

And even if he did, he could lose it all in second.

A shudder ran up his spine, and he pressed his face further into the soft cotton of his brother’s nightshirt.

“i’m so scared, pap … i’m so scared, i see you die but i see it so many times and sometimes i don’t even care and it scares the hell out of me, god, papyrus, i love you so much i can’t lose you again i can’t i can’t i can’t i can’t …”

The fabric in front of his face was soaked, and Sans’s whole body trembled, whimpers slipping past his teeth as the image of Papyrus’s severed head lying in the snow refused to leave him.

“SANS, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Papyrus asked, holding him with one arm while the other rubbed over his back, firm yet careful. “I’M NOT DEAD. I’M RIGHT HERE.”

Sans tried to let go, tried to back up and tell him he was fine, but he just held tighter instead. “but not before … you were … it was real, had to be real, all the readings said …”

“READINGS?”

He shouldn’t be talking about this. He had promised himself he would never talk about this, not to Papyrus, not to anyone, it was his burden to bear, no one could do anything about it so why make them suffer, too?

His brother shouldn’t suffer. His brother should ever, ever suffer.

Not if Sans could do something about it.

But the world was spinning around him, he didn’t know where he was, when he was, what was going on, and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t think of a single decent lie.

“other … timelines,” he went on, mentally smacking himself across the head with every word. “kept resetting, over and over and over and over and …”

He didn’t look up, but he could feel Papyrus tilt his head. “TIMELINES? LIKE IN YOUR SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS?”

Sans clenched his teeth, squeezing his sockets shut before shaking his head again. No. No, this was a bad idea, what the hell was he thinking, he couldn’t tell Papyrus, he couldn’t throw all this on his shoulders, he didn’t even want it on his _own_ shoulders.

“s nothing. don’t worry about it.”

He took a deep breath and forced some of his panic down, just like he had a hundred times before. He blinked away the remnants of his tears and pulled his head back to look up at Papyrus and smile.

But Papyrus was frowning.

“NO. IT’S NOT NOTHING.”

Sans’s browbone furrowed. Papyrus’s face pinched.

“YOU’RE NOT OKAY, SANS. YOU’RE … YOU’RE SAD AND SCARED, YOU’RE SAD ALL THE TIME AND YOU WON’T TELL ME WHY AND NOTHING I DO HELPS.”

“you always help,” Sans said, instantly, automatically, so sure, so desperate to make Papyrus believe it was true. “you’re the only thing that … without you, i’d …”

His hands curled around Papyrus’s nightshirt, but Papyrus’s face just tensed further, his sockets squinted as if he might start crying at any second.

“BUT I CAN’T HELP YOU,” he murmured, as much to himself as to Sans. “I WANT TO HELP YOU, SANS, BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW. PLEASE. TELL ME WHAT TO DO.”

He tugged Sans a little closer, curling his hands against his spine.

“I WANT TO PROTECT YOU, TOO.”

Sans stared up at him, silent, and without any words to distract him, he was all too aware of how hard he was trembling. He must look ridiculous. Granted, he had looked ridiculous plenty of times around Papyrus. But not like this. Never like this. This was the one thing he had hoped to spare him from, no matter how bad it got.

He should brush it off. He shouldn’t give in, as much as his SOUL ached to do so. He should just shake his head and keep quiet and do exactly what he had been doing for years, because that was the way it had to be. He had to be strong. He _wanted_ to be strong, if only to make up for every way he was weak.

But Papyrus was still staring at him, soft, yet tight, pained and loving. Filled with as much affection as Sans felt glowing in his chest.

Sans let out all the air in his ribcage in one long sigh. His head fall down.

And he began to talk.

He didn’t really know what he was saying. He had never _talked_ about it before. Or maybe he had and just didn’t remember it. He could have done all kinds of things and didn’t remember it. Maybe they had had this exact same conversation and a thousand times and he would never, never know.

He didn’t care.

Once he started, he couldn’t stop.

Everything that had run through his head a thousand times—even if he could only remember a fraction of them—fell from his mouth without filter. Everyone he had watched die in dreams that weren’t dreams, every time the human had left them with half their friends dead and no hope, the vague impressions of Undyne taking the throne when Asgore died, of Papyrus becoming king and struggling to keep everyone going, every time Sans had found himself alone with all his friends dead, a few were alive but everyone else was gone and he waited, just _waited,_ begging for it to start all over again.

He talked about the resets, about the smaller reloads, about the little hints that tipped him off until he was sure beyond any doubt but he couldn’t tell anyone because they wouldn’t believe him and even if they did he didn’t _want_ them to know.

He talked about the last six months.

He talked about every day that he had wondered might be the last. He talked about how sometimes he wished for it, because at least then things would go back to what he knew, what he thought he knew, what he barely remembered. He talked about the dreams that never went away no matter how much time passed, the dreams of Papyrus dying in front of him. Everything he had tried so hard to keep from his brother, everything he had hoped he would never have to know, not _this_ time around.

He told him.

When his words trailed off at last, the silence had never felt quite so heavy.

Papyrus was still there. Still holding him. He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t spoken up, not even once. And when a full minute passed without so much as a peep, Sans was ready to beat himself over the head.

Well, that was one way to screw over a nice, long run in a matter of minutes.

Maybe he could go and beg the kid to reset and see if they would show him mercy.

He shifted in his brother’s arms, cursing his own stupidity one more time.

“i sound crazy,” he muttered. “i know i sound crazy, i probly am crazy, just forget all that, pap, i’m just tired, just a bad dream, i was …”

“YOU’RE NOT CRAZY, SANS.”

Sans paused, then tilted his head up to meet his brother’s eyes. Papyrus watched him with an expression Sans, for the first time in his life, had no idea how to read. Not happy, not sad, not angry, not even confused, just … unsure, a crease in his browbone and his gaze off to the side.

“WELL, MAYBE A LITTLE,” he added a few seconds later. “BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU DRINK KETCHUP STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOTTLE.”

Sans tried to laugh, but it came out more like a sob, so he stopped himself there. He wondered if Papyrus was tired of holding him yet. But when he shifted, Papyrus’s arms tightened around him, and Sans settled back down. Even if he had nothing else in the world, he had this. He had his brother.

For now.

When he glanced up again, Papyrus was staring at the wall.

“WAS THAT WHY YOU STOPPED GOING TO THE LAB?”

Sans let out a long breath, far too tired to make up an excuse. He moved his shoulders in something vaguely resembling a shrug. “wasn’t any point anymore.”

Another pause.

“YOU LIKED IT THERE. ONCE.” Papyrus looked down at him, then away again. “I REMEMBER WHEN YOU FIRST GOT THE JOB. YOU SMILED ALL THE TIME.”

“i still smile, bro,” Sans murmured.

“THAT’S NOT SMILING, SANS.”

Neither of them spoke for several minutes after that. The silence had never felt so … quiet. So empty, but not in the way it had been empty before. Now, for once, Sans felt his head almost entirely blank. Like everything that had been building up inside it had burst out, and now he was just a husk.

He couldn’t decide whether it was better this way.

“i’m sorry.”

Papyrus shifted, tightening his arms around him as if on reflex. “WHY?”

Sans sighed and settled his head against his brother’s chest.

“the kid’s your friend. you like ‘em. and … they’ve been nice to you. this time round. didn’t mean to ruin …”

Papyrus didn’t reply at first. Sans lay there, memorizing the feel of each of his ribs, the sound of his breath, the pulse of his SOUL. If he could just stay right here, forever, everything would be alright.

“I DON’T KNOW WHY FRISK WOULD DO THOSE THINGS.”

And then he remembered why it could never be alright.

He tensed, because he was too tired to stop it. He couldn’t bring himself to lift his head, to meet Papyrus’s eyes, to see the furrow of his browbone, the frown of his mouth, his wide, baffled sockets. The pain, the betrayal, that he never, never should have felt.

“THEY’VE ALWAYS BEEN SO NICE TO US,” he went on. “THEY’RE MY BEST FRIEND.”

Sans squeezed him tight, and he felt Papyrus’s hand rub up and down his spine. At last, he let out a soft breath, a little sad, but not half as much as Sans had expected.

“SOMETIMES PEOPLE DO BAD THINGS. THAT DOESN’T MEAN THEY’RE ALL BAD, THOUGH.” Papyrus’s hand came to rest on the back of Sans’s head, cradling it, making small circles against the bone with one of his thumbs. “AS LONG AS THEY CAN CHANGE, THEY CAN DO BETTER.”

A whimper slipped past Sans’s teeth as the words echoed in his head.

How many times? How many times had Papyrus said that to the human? How many times he had said that and just _stood there_ while they walked toward him with the knife in hand? How many times had he insisted that they could change and they _hadn’t_?

How many times had they dropped the knife?

How many times had they never picked it up in the first place?

“I THINK FRISK IS DOING BETTER THIS TIME,” Papyrus went on. “AND … EVEN IF THEY DO BAD THINGS AGAIN … THEY CAN STILL GET BETTER. I’LL HELP THEM GET BETTER. WE’LL ALL HELP THEM GET BETTER. TOGETHER!”

He paused. His breath filled the silence just enough to keep Sans’s mind focused, and the thrum of his SOUL echoed through every one of his bones.

“AND … WE’LL HELP YOU, TOO, SANS.” Papyrus clutched him tighter still. “I’LL HELP YOU. BECAUSE … YOU’RE MY BROTHER. AND I LOVE YOU.”

And tighter.

“SO MUCH.”

His voice cracked, and Sans sighed as he felt his brother nuzzle his cheekbone against the top of his skull.

“MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD.”

For the first time, Sans noticed that he wasn’t the only one trembling. He tensed, ready to pull back, to comfort his brother, he _should_ be doing the comforting, he had always done the comforting, that was his _job,_ it was—

But Papyrus held too tight for him to move, and all Sans could do was sit there as he shook his head against Sans’s skull.

“I … I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’D DO IF YOU WEREN’T …” He let out a shaking sigh. “WHATEVER I HAVE TO DO TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE OKAY, I’LL DO IT. EVEN IF I NEVER GET TO BE A CHEF AND I NEVER GET A CAR, AS LONG AS I HAVE YOU, EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY.”

His hand moved again, rubbing his thumb in little circles over part of Sans’s spine. Sans choked back a sob. Papyrus nestled his head closer under his chin.

“THINGS WILL GET BETTER. I KNOW THEY WILL,” he whispered, as quiet as Sans had ever heard him. Another nuzzle. Another squeeze. “I LOVE YOU, SANS. I LOVE YOU.”

Sans’s breath shook. There were tears in his eyes and in his throat and it was hard to breathe and he couldn’t stop shaking, his bones rattling just as hard as Papyrus’s. But he didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.

“love you, too, bro.”

Neither of them spoke after that. Sans couldn’t think of anything else to say, and Papyrus was content to rub his back and nuzzle his head. It felt like at least ten minutes later that his grip began to loosen, and very gently, he lowered Sans back onto the mattress, resting his skull against the pillow as if he might crumble at the slightest touch.

Then Papyrus settled down on the mattress beside him, and didn’t even grumble at the stiffness or the smell or the complete lack of sheets. He just slid his arms around Sans again and pulled him close, tucking his head underneath his chin so that all Sans could see through his squinted, blurred sockets was his brother.

Fingers stroked over his skull, then down his spine and back up again, so careful, so gentle, as Papyrus began to hum a happy little tune he had made up one day while on sentry duty. It had words, but Sans was too tired to remember them. All he wanted to think about now was Papyrus’s voice, rumbling through his bones, following the gentle rhythm of each caress.

He was here. They were both here.

He knew. He believed him. He believed all the horrible things that he couldn’t remember.

And still his hope persisted.

Maybe it wouldn’t last. Maybe Sans would wake up tomorrow morning and he would be back in Snowdin, all of this just a vague impression, and the kid would appear and turn everyone to dust.

But maybe they wouldn’t.

And for the first time Sans could remember, that “maybe,” when Papyrus held him and hummed to him and _lived_ and _breathed_ right beside him, was all he needed.

He closed his eyes and slept.


	9. Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second to last chapter! Thanks for sticking with me through this little fic. See you all Thursday for the final installment. :)
> 
> Also, this chapter is not meant as an excuse for past actions, just an explanation. But please do remember that regardless of anything else, Frisk is still a kid. A kid dropped into a terrifying situation and forced to make choices many adults wouldn't handle very well.

Papyrus lifted up his arm, bone attack clutched tight within his gloved hand.

“THIS IS THE END OF THE LINE, HUMAN. YOU STAND BEFORE YOUR GREATEST FOE WITH NO HOPE OF ESCAPE. SURRENDER NOW, OR PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM!”

The human, small as they were, stood taller still, brandishing their weapon with both hands high above their head.

“I will never surrender!”

Papyrus lifted his head, mouth set tight, a tiny smile curling at the corners. “SO BE IT. EN GARDE!”

And with that, he raced forward, holding his bone attack, shouting a war cry at the top of his nonexistent lungs. And Frisk ran at him just as fast—though only half as loud—their own cardboard tube held out like a sword. The two weapons collided with a “thud,” the enthusiastic shouts of each of the brave warriors a good deal louder.

Something deep in Sans’s SOUL still twisted with every blow, every time the cardboard tube came close to whacking Papyrus on the head—even if he knew, from experience, that even wielded by Undyne, the cardboard tube was entirely useless. But he said nothing. He lay back in his lawn chair, watching his brother and his brother’s best human friend “spar,” while everyone else bustled around inside.

The backdoor opened to his left, and Sans turned to see Tori poking her head out the door, offering him a quick smile before turning to Papyrus and Frisk. She chuckled, shaking her head with a fond sigh.

“Papyrus,” she called.

Papyrus and Frisk both froze, their heads whipping around to face her.

“YES, TORIEL?”

“I believe you wanted to help with the mashed potatoes?” she asked. “We’re about to start.”

Papyrus’s whole face lit up, and a bit more of the tension in Sans’s bones slid away. His bone attack vanished.

“I MOST CERTAINLY DO WANT TO HELP! THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST AT MASHING ROOT VEGETABLES UNTIL THEY ARE THE PERFECT CONSISTENCY!” He turned to the kid with a grin. “I APOLOGIZE, HUMAN FRISK, IT SEEMS WE MUST CONTINUE OUR BATTLE ANOTHER TIME. NEVER FEAR, I SHALL RETURN!”

Frisk raised their cardboard tube in the air with one hand and saluted with the other. Papyrus saluted back, then turned around and scampered off to join Tori in the kitchen.

The door shut, and the backyard was silent.

Sans eyed the kid, holding their pose for a moment before dropping their arm to their side. He looked at the door, listening to the faint sounds of Papyrus’s voice mixing in with the others inside. Then he let his sockets drift up toward the sky.

The rest of the week had come and gone faster than Sans could process. He had gone back to his jobs, and Papyrus had gone back to the restaurant. Neither of them spoke of that night, of the tears, of the screams. At first, Sans wasn’t even sure if it had happened. By the time he woke up the next morning, Papyrus had already started on breakfast, and when Sans met him in the kitchen, he was humming as he divided his scrambled-egg recipe onto plates.

Then he turned around.

And Sans knew.

He didn’t need to say anything. Sans could see it in his eyes. In the way he moved. In his smile. In the minuscule differences he might not have seen just a few weeks earlier, if only because he had never looked close enough. Even if he had never seen it before, he knew he would never stop seeing it again.

They said very little as they ate, but just before Papyrus left for work, he paused to pull Sans into a long, tight hug, then scrambled off, shouting something about having never been late before and not wanting to break his streak. Sans felt the faint warmth of his arms around him for the rest of the day.

They didn’t talk about it, but they didn’t need to. Not yet, anyway. There were things they could discuss later on. Questions Papyrus certainly had. Things that Sans might actually try to get off his chest. Things that he had never wished for his brother to shoulder, but things that felt a good deal lighter now that he wasn’t carrying them alone. For now, though, they were okay. They were here. They were together. And they would keep moving forward, just as they had for the past six months, for as long as they were here.

“Sans?”

Sans flinched, but managed to hide it, and when he tilted his head toward the voice, his expression was just as tired and comfortable as he willed it to be.

“hey, kid,” he said, eyes flicking for only a second to the cardboard tube still clutched in their hands before returning to their face. “sup?”

Frisk wasn’t smiling. They barely his gaze at all, focusing instead on their shoes—nice new tennis shoes Tori had bought them last week since their old ones were falling apart.

“Papyrus was talking to me earlier.”

“i thought he was talking to you just now,” Sans replied, his grin wider even as his SOUL stuttered.

Part of him hoped the kid would smile and go along with his joke. They didn’t, of course. They hardly ever did what he wanted.

They rubbed one of their ankles with the toe of the opposite shoe.

“He asked me whether I ever … hurt any of you,” they went on. “And whether I made it so no one remembered what happened.”

Sans’s sockets went dark before he could stop them, and suddenly he was glad Frisk wouldn’t look at him. He curled his hands into fists, then forced them to relax, letting out a shaky breath through his teeth.

Frisk glanced up at him, just for a second, before returning to their shoes.

“He said you have dreams about it.” They rubbed their other ankle, and tightened their hands around the cardboard tube. “He said he does, too.”

Sans jolted. The kid still wouldn’t look at him, even as he stared at them, sockets wide.

“what?” he managed, barely louder than a breath.

Frisk fidgeted.

“He … I don’t think he wanted me to tell you that.”

Sans should have had something to say about respecting others’ privacy. But he didn’t. He just stared, his body frozen while they shifted from foot to foot.

“It’s not much, he said. Just … occasionally. And they’re really vague. He didn’t even think anything about it until he found out about yours.”

Sans’s gaze drifted toward the house, even though he knew he couldn’t see Papyrus through the windows. If he focused, he imagined he could make out his booming voice, maybe chatting with Tori about what to add to the potatoes. Cheerful, exuberant. Alive. So, so alive.

“I never wanted to bring it up,” Frisk said, snapping Sans’s attention back to them. “Because … I wanted to believe the rest of it didn’t happen. I wanted to believe it was my first time doing everything. That I could start over. Do things right.”

Before Sans could think of a response, they pursed their lips and looked up, meeting his eyes, even though he could see the fear written all across their face.

“But that’s not fair.”

They held the tube close to their chest, shoulders hunched but head resolutely straight.

“Papyrus says you can do better. That you can always change,” they went on. Something in their eyes softened, and they licked their lips. “But … I don’t think you can do better if you don’t admit what you did wrong.”

Sans sat up a bit in his chair, balancing his weight back on his hands. Frisk held their tube even tighter, their brow furrowing and their bottom lip poked out. For a second, Sans was afraid they were going to cry.

But they didn’t. They just shook their head, faster and faster, hair flopping back and forth over their face.

“I just … I don’t know … how do you say sorry for something like this? How do you say _anything_ about something like this?”

Their breath trembled as they let it out. He waited for them to continue, but they didn’t. They just hugged themselves, tube clutched like a teddy bear, head low and face pinched.

Sans felt the tension he had barely noticed in his own body begin to fade.

“sorry’s a good enough place to start.”

They looked up. They blinked. Then they set their mouth into a thin line.

“I’m sorry, then. I’m so, so, so, so, so …” They gritted their teeth and let out a sound between a groan and a whimper. “I know it doesn’t change anything, I was … I was scared, I was scared of everyone, Mom told me everyone was dangerous, and they kept attacking me, they were going to kill me, so I fought back and I didn’t have to but I didn’t _know_ and they died, they kept dying and it made me stronger, I thought it was the only way, so I did it more and more but it never made anything better and then I got it, I didn’t _have_ to kill them, I could spare them and I could still live and I thought I could save everyone, get everyone out and I _did,_ but that didn’t fix it, things kept going wrong and I didn’t want to face it, I didn’t want to face _anything_ , I just wanted to go back to the Underground when everything was okay and I didn’t have to deal with the way things were out here, I didn't have to watch you guys get attacked and kicked out of stores and called bad names and you have to work so hard to get _anything_ and I _can’t do anything about it_ and …”

A few tears slipped down their cheeks, and they dropped the tube at last and pressed their palms against their eyes. Their hair fell over their face, but that did nothing to hide the muffled sobs that made their whole body shake.

He should have gotten up. He should have approached them and pulled them into his arms like Tori or Papyrus or even Undyne or Alphys would have done.

But he wasn’t Tori or Papyrus or Undyne or Alphys. He was Sans. And he just sat there, watching as the kid cried, until at last, their sobs slowed, and they wiped their arm over their eyes to clean off the residual tears.

“I’m sorry,” they said again, sniffing, their eyes puffy and cheeks still wet. “I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have done any of it.”

Sans stared at them for a moment longer, silent, even as they stared back. At last, he slid his arms down and settled back into the chair, his hands resting over his middle.

“well, hope you’d still do some of it. otherwise we’d still be underground.”

Even he wasn’t sure whether he meant it as a joke. Either way, Frisk didn’t smile.

“Would it be better that way?” they asked, humbly, genuinely, and completely unassuming. “If you didn’t have to deal with all the stuff the humans do to you?”

Sans paused. He looked at the kid, this little kid who had made his life a living hell more times than he ever wanted to remember, even if he could. This kid who had killed him and saved his brother, who had killed and saved everyone he loved, who had used monsters as their puppets for a thousand different runs.

Except looking at them now, he couldn’t believe it.

He couldn’t believe that they viewed them as nothing more than playthings.

They had died. They had died as much as his brother had, probably more. For all the times he had watched his friends die, how many times had he seen the kid die? How many times had they died when he wasn’t looking? How many times had they been knocked down, and no one mourned them? No one but a woman behind a door who would never be sure of their fate?

Had anyone shown them mercy, once they walked through that door? He had never tried to fight them, and Papyrus … Papyrus would never have really hurt them. Didn’t they know that? Had they had the _chance_ to know that? Or had so many monsters slashed them down before that they had just seen Papyrus coming at them with bones and assumed he would keep going to the end?

They could come back. They must have known from early on that they could come back, as many times as they wanted.

Did dying get any easier when you did it a thousand times?

Did it get any easier when you could _remember_ it?

Would Sans have fought back, if those monsters had gone after him?

He didn’t know. He would probably never know.

But Papyrus knew what the kid had done. He knew how many times they had killed him. He knew far more than Sans had dared imagine. And he had still stood there and clashed bone against cardboard tube, laughing and smiling as if the kid was still his best human friend.

And they were.

Papyrus had died. And he had forgiven his murderer.

Papyrus had never killed. He _would_ never kill. The kid had killed, more than any of them could count. And they had probably been killed just as much.

And they had spared their way through every battle, just to set their former killers free.

Then they’d forced them back again. Over and over. Set them free and let them see the sun then shoved them back inside the mountain. And done it all over.

In the vain hope that it would be better next time around.

Sans fingers curled into his hand, and his smile set a little tighter.

If Papyrus had walked inside with cracks in his bones, clothes torn, smile shaky, and Sand had had the power to reset … would he have done it? Would he have even let it get that far?

_if i were you, i would have thrown in the towel by now._

He would have given up. A thousand times over.

Maybe he wouldn’t have come back at all.

_but you didn’t get this far by giving up._

And as many times as they had started over, as many times as they had decided that it wasn’t worth it to keep trying on one timeline, they were still there. They were _all_ still here.

Sans let out a long breath and leaned further back into his chair.

“nah, kid. at least here we got a chance.”

They furrowed their brow, and he let out a sigh, feeling more of the tension in his bones begin to slip away.

“that’s what you gave us,” he murmured, as much to himself as to them. “a chance. no one said it was gonna be easy after that.”

He wished they would smile. They looked different when they smiled, bright and dorky and so much like Papyrus sometimes it scared him. It was when they smiled that he could forget everything that could happened, that he could begin to see them like everyone else did.

But they didn’t smile. They stood up straight and held their arms firm against their sides.

“I’m not gonna reset again,” they said, without a hint of doubt, so simple, so certain, for a choice that could decide his entire world. “Ever. Not unless you really want me to, or something really, really bad happens, or …”

They stopped, took a deep breath, and shook their head.

“I won’t. This is it.”

There was no hesitation there. No hint of a lie. But if Papyrus could lie to him, for all this time, then so could a kid who had far more experience in lying than Sans would ever know. He lowered his browbone, looked at them a little closer.

Had they had this conversation before?

Had Frisk promised that this time would be different, promised that this time, they wouldn’t change their mind and send everyone back underground? Had something “really, really bad” happened? Had something happened that they could have worked through, something that was tough but not so tough they couldn’t move past it, but the kid decided they couldn’t and thrown them back without even asking whether they wanted it?

He didn’t know.

He would never know.

All he had was this kid standing in front of him. This kid who had screwed up. This kid who had tried to make things better.

And to his own surprise, he found that he couldn’t ask for anything more.

So he nodded, and he watched a bit of the tension in the kid’s shoulders slip away.

It would have to be enough for now.

Neither of them said anything else. Sans hoisted himself out of his chair and started inside, Frisk following close behind him. He pushed open the door and stepped into the kitchen, with Tori, Undyne, Alphys and Papyrus all crowded around the counter, steam rising from pans, dishes clattering together, and random, unintelligible shouts and murmurs filling the air with comfortable chaos.

Frisk slipped past him, into the living room, probably toward the staircase and their room on the second floor. Sans paused near the back door, just watching his friends laugh and chat and _live_ , the way he had once hoped they could. Back when hope was something he had actually considered.

Hope. Papyrus said it so often, yet now Sans wasn’t even sure what it meant.

He took another few steps forward, his movements light, waving to Tori when she glanced at him but staying silent. It wasn’t until he stood right behind Papyrus, peeling potatoes in front of the sink, that he broke into the noise at last.

“hey, bro.”

Papyrus spun around, potato peeler held in one hand, and broke into a wide grin.

“SANS! I DIDN’T THINK YOU WANTED TO HELP WITH DINNER,” he said, his voice just as bright as his face. He paused then. “ _DO_ YOU WANT TO HELP WITH DINNER? ”

Sans glanced around at the pile of half-peeled potatoes, Tori, Undyne and Alphys already going to work on what looked like green bean casserole, baked beans, and pudding. His grin stretched a little wider, and he shrugged. “sure. why not.”

Papyrus beamed.

“WELL, THEN, WONDERFUL! YOU CAN CHOP THE POTATOES I’VE ALREADY PEELED. WE’RE GOING TO COOK THEM AND MASH THEM VERY VIOLENTLY! UNDYNE SAYS THE MORE YOU MASH THEM, THE BETTER THEY TASTE!”

“Darn right!” Undyne replied, pumping her fist high in the air without turning away from the pudding.

Papyrus gestured toward the cutting board on one of the very few empty sections of counter, covered with the half-peeled potatoes and a very large cutting knife. For a second, Sans paused, eyes on the blade, and all he could see was dust and a red scarf fluttering in the wind.

Then he saw a knife, and potatoes, and all his friends bustling away to make dinner.

He picked up the knife in one hand, a potato in the other, and began to chop.

“DID YOU AND THE HUMAN FRISK HAVE A GOOD CHAT?” Papyrus asked after he had worked his way through a couple of potatoes, the knife far less worrisome now that he had gotten a bit of use out of it.

“yeah.”

Papyrus flashed him a wide smile. “GOOD.”

He peeled a few more potatoes, setting them so carefully on the cutting board that Sans wondered how he had ever learned to cook from Undyne. After a very long minute—and a glance at his three friends to make sure they were occupied—he cleared his throat.

“hey, papyrus?”

“YES, SANS?”

When he stayed silent for a few seconds, Papyrus paused and faced him again, his beaming smile fallen, his brow tilted in concern. His concern, somehow, hadn’t changed. He looked just as worried about Sans as he had a week ago, and the week before that, and before that, and for months earlier, even before Frisk fell into the Underground in the first place.

_He said you have dreams about it. He said he does, too._

Had Papyrus seen the same things he had seen? Had he seen the worst of it? Had he felt himself die, every time, every memory carving itself deep into his skull? How many times had he woken up in the middle of the night, terrified, and Sans had just slept right through it? How many times had he failed?

_I WANT TO PROTECT YOU, TOO._

Was that failing?

Was it failing if Papyrus did exactly the same thing to Sans as Sans had done to him? Hidden things because he thought it would make it better? Was it failing if Sans realized how stupid it had been? Was it failing if he realized, now, that it was only making things worse? Was it failing if he tried to change?

Was it failing to look at his precious brother now and decide that this time—no matter how long it lasted—he was going to be better?

Papyrus was still watching him, more and more concerned by the second. But Sans just let his mouth curl into a smile again, a smile that, for once, he didn’t even have to force.

“nothing,” he replied. He motioned toward the potatoes. “how small do you want me to chop these, by the way?”

Papyrus stared at him a moment longer, his eyes more piercing than Sans could remember ever seeing them. Even though they had probably looked that way many times before.

Then his face relaxed, and he smiled again, looking back to his own pile of washed, unpeeled potatoes.

“WELL, LAST TIME WE DID THIS, UNDYNE JUST THREW THE WHOLE POTATOES IN THERE AND IT DIDN’T TURN OUT VERY GOOD, SO I THINK VERY VERY SMALL! AND BE CAREFUL WITH THE KNIFE, IT’S VERY SHARP!”

Sans flinched, gripping the knife handle a little tighter. But there was nothing off about Papyrus’s expression, and as easy as it would have been to ask the questions still swirling in his mind, he stayed silent. Then he relaxed his hold and went back to chopping.

He would bring it up later. When things were quiet. When it was needed. Sometime when they weren’t standing in the kitchen with all their friends, Undyne stirring the pudding so hard it was flying in her face, Alphys far overdoing the cream in the green bean casserole, Tori just trying to keep things under control, and the kid—Frisk—running back into the kitchen, smiling a real smile, looking like any other kid, ready to help their mom make sure dinner turned out halfway edible. Sometime when Papyrus wasn’t grinning to himself and humming a happy little tune as he peeled the skin off each potato with the utmost care.

After all, if they really weren’t going anywhere, then he had all the time in the world.

And even if they were, well, he had been meaning to make a trip back down to his lab in Snowdin anyway. He wasn’t too fond of writing specific reminders, for fear of flooding the place if the resets piled up. But this was important.

Besides, it was about time he put some more pictures in with that group photo in the drawer.


	10. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I can't believe this little story is already over. Thanks so much to everyone who's commented, left kudos, bookmarked, or just read the story. You guys are awesome. :)
> 
> Oh, and if you'd like to see my attempt at a giant (and I mean _giant_ ) skelebros fic involving Gaster, Science!Sans, Homemaker!Papyrus, and feels of the happy and not-happy-at-all variety, check back on my profile on June 11 for the first chapter of _It's Raining Right Here_. ;)

He had it.

He couldn’t believe it at first. He hadn’t checked in a while, even if he had been planning this for months. Then he brought his paycheck home and counted up his savings and it him like a brick to the face.

He had the down payment.

The down payment and enough for the first three months. That was what he had promised himself. After that, he could take care of the monthly payments, he was sure of it. It would probably take a bit of convincing to get the car dealer to sell a new car to someone with as low an income as his—and a monster with less than a year of credit history, at that—but he could deal with that.

What mattered was that he had the money.

He considered telling Papyrus right then. It felt wrong to keep something this important from him, after all that had happened. But he held his silence, as difficult as it was, and if anything, Papyrus seemed pleased to see his brother smiling more than usual.

They had talked about it enough times—or, rather, Papyrus had gone on about it and showed him pictures and Sans had listened and nodded and pretended to be half-asleep even though he was taking it all in like a sponge. They hadn’t known much about car makes or models in the Underground. All Papyrus had known was that he wanted a red sports car. But since they had begun living here, Papyrus had bought every car magazine he could get his hands on, and he had picked out the exact one he wanted, even though he had sighed immediately after pointing to the picture and said that he knew he wouldn’t be able to afford it for a very long time.

It took Sans two weeks. Two weeks of searching, two weeks of arguing with five different car salespeople, three of whom had him “escorted” out before he even had the chance to tell them what he wanted.

But finally, he closed the deal—even if the salesman refused to shake his hand once he’d signed the contract. And he thanked the small bit of luck that the salesman didn’t bother to ask for his driver’s license before he drove the car off the property.

Well, it wasn’t very far to their apartment complex.

And he had watched Papyrus enough time to pick up the basics.

Papyrus would have a conniption if he found out, but Sans hoped that the joy of his surprise would be enough to distract him and, at least, keep the ranting to a minimum.

He wouldn’t mind the ranting too much, though, even if he did get a firm telling-off on the matter. And he and Papyrus had been talking far more lately than they had in a long time— _really_ talking, not just Papyrus letting his mouth run for several minutes or Sans turning everything into a bad joke, though there was still plenty of mouth-running and even more bad jokes.

They sat down every day, twice a day, for meals, and they talked.

At breakfast, Sans talked about his dreams, and Papyrus, in turn, told him about his own. Most of them, to Sans’s relief, were about things like him becoming leader of a human country or Sans turning into a cat or all the humans deciding that monsters were immensely cool and throwing a big party only every human at the party looked exactly like Papyrus’s co-worker Becky. Sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes they were filled with dust and screaming and tears and empty stretches of Underground with no monsters remaining to fill it. Sometimes they were filled with Papyrus’s best human friend shambling toward him with a knife in hand, and Papyrus woke up trying to remind himself that he and Frisk had just had ice cream on very friendly terms the weekend before.

But usually, if Papyrus had a dream like that, Sans already knew, because as he had promised, his brother had come to him right after it ended. The promise he had only made once Sans agreed to do the same.

For the first two weeks, that meant Sans ended up in Papyrus’s bed by the end of every night.

And after that, on the days he didn’t, Papyrus usually ended up in his.

Neither of them minded. Papyrus said it was like a never-ending sleepover, or like being babybones again, “EVEN THOUGH I AM MOST CERTAINLY NOT A BABYBONES BUT I DO WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE ALRIGHT, BROTHER, AND IF YOU WOULD PREFER THAT THE GREAT PAPYRUS COME STAY WITH YOU AFTER HE HAS DREAMS THAT ARE NOT THE BEST, THEN I WILL DO IT.”

They talked at breakfast, and at dinner, they talked about their days. _Actually_ talked about their days. Papyrus told him what had happened at the restaurant, and Sans went over all the highlights of however many jobs where he had shifts.

It wasn’t perfect, of course. There were things Sans didn’t tell his brother, and he was sure, now, that there were details Papyrus didn’t tell him. He still sugar-coated it. He still made it sound like it was a fantastic job and he was lucky to have it. But when his co-workers tripped him, he told Sans. When his boss blew up at him in front of the entire restaurant, he talked about it, his voice a little quieter than usual.

And when one of the waitresses stood by his side and refused to let Papyrus take all the blame for a mistake of the entire wait staff, Papyrus told him _all_ about it.

It wasn’t perfect, and they had a long way to go. To tell each other the important things. To try to make things better.

But it was a start.

For now, a start was good enough.

He pulled the car into the parking spot he and his brother had been assigned, but had never used, when they moved into the apartment, then walked across the parking lot a good deal faster than usual, unable to stop his grin from stretching wider across his face. He climbed the stairs in almost a jog, then paused in front of the door, listening for the telltale sounds of Papyrus bustling around inside.

He turned his key in the lock and pulled open the door.

It was hard to see at first, with the sun shining in behind him, but as he stepped inside, he swore he saw Papyrus just inside his bedroom, messing around with something that sounded like paper. He didn’t seem to have noticed the door opening. Sans tilted his head to the side, then let the door close behind him.

“hey, bro.”

Papyrus jolted almost hard enough to fall over, spinning around to face him.

“SANS!” he shrieked, really _shrieked,_ scrambling into the hall and slamming the door to his bedroom shut without looking away from Sans for a second. “I DIDN’T THINK YOU’D BE HOME THIS EARLY!”

“i took a few hours off,” Sans replied, browbone raised. He glanced over Papyrus’s shoulder, at the closed door, but shrugged it off. He could figure that out later. There were more important things now. He stuck his hands back in his pockets. “got a surprise for ya.”

And immediately, Papyrus’s panic disappeared. He perked up, a tiny smile curling his mouth. “REALLY? WHAT IS IT?”

“well, if i told ya, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, now, would it?”

“I SUPPOSE NOT,” Papyrus replied, though he didn’t seem particularly happy about this fact. He leaned to the side, as if Sans had somehow hidden the gift behind him even though both his hands were in front.

Sans chuckled, giddier than he had been in months, if not years. He nodded over his shoulder.

“c’mon. it’s out front.”

Papyrus tilted his head. “YOU COULDN’T BRING IT WITH YOU?”

Sans chuckled again. His smile must have looked ridiculous by this point. “it’s a little big to bring inside.”

Papyrus frowned, then shrugged and strolled across the room, faster than usual. Sans pulled open the door and led him across the landing, down the stairs, and into the parking lot. He kept his eyes forward, but he heard Papyrus’s more-eager-than-usual steps, the occasionally excited giggle slipping out of his mouth.

At last, Sans stopped, under the covered parking area in the back of the lot, in front of a bright red sports car.

He looked at Papyrus. Papyrus looked to his left, then to his right. His eyes settled on the car for a few seconds, sockets wide, something like longing in his gaze. But he shook it off and looked back to Sans, browbone furrowed.

“WELL? WHERE IS IT?”

If Sans smiled any wider, he wasn’t going to have any room left on his skull.

He slipped one hand out of his pocket and pointed to the car in front of them, lazy, casual, but far too close to miss.

“surprise.”

Papyrus looked at the car. Then back to Sans. Back to the car, back to Sans. He frowned harder.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” he asked, leaning in over the door of the car with his browbone still furrowed. “IS IT INSIDE THE CAR? AND WHOSE CAR IS THIS, I DON’T REMEMBER ANYONE IN OUR APARTMENT COMPLEX DRIVING A—”

He froze, the words cut off with his mouth still open.

He looked to his left, and to his right, taking in the car in front of him for the first time. Very slowly, he turned around, browbone furrowed, sockets as wide as Sans had ever seen them.

“SANS … YOU …” Sans didn’t say anything, and Papyrus looked back and forth between Sans and the car a few more times, the shock on his face growing with every turn. When he finally stopped, Sans swore he saw the beginnings of tears growing at the corners of his eyes. “YOU REALLY … BUT …”

“you always said you wanted one,” Sans murmured, far more sheepish than he had intended, though his smile remained as wide and blissful as before. “wind through your hair. sun on your skin.”

There were definitely tears now, big fat tears, bigger and bigger until they slid down Papyrus’s cheeks. The line of his mouth wobbled, and in any other situation, it would have pained Sans to see it.

“SANS … YOU SHOULDN’T …” He drew in a shaking breath and glanced toward the car. “IT’S … IT’S …”

He went silent, but before Sans could ask him what he had meant to say—to make sure that those tears really _were_ tears of joy—Papyrus spun back around and yanked Sans into a hug so tight it almost cracked his ribs. Despite the pain, Sans laughed, a soft, happy sound, and though his arms were trapped in Papyrus’s grip, he laid his head on his brother’s chest. Papyrus nuzzled their skulls together, giggles slipping past his throat, a few tears dripping onto Sans’s head. Sans nuzzled right back.

At last, Papyrus set him back down, and as Sans stretched out his now-cramped bones, Papyrus cleared his throat.

“AHEM.” He looked back to the car, and the excitement of a minute ago returned, though not quite enough for him to pull Sans into another crushing embrace. “YOU … YOU REALLY GOT THIS FOR ME?”

“down payment and three months,” Sans replied, brushing himself off and sticking his hands back into his pockets, still grinning like a complete idiot. “we should be good after that. once it’s paid off, it’s all yours. for good.”

Papyrus shook his head, very slow. “YOU’VE BEEN WORKING SO MUCH … WAS THAT FOR …?”

He wasn’t frowning, but he wasn’t really smiling either, and Sans couldn’t tell whether the expression was more good or bad. He shrugged.

“hope you’re not disappointed,” he muttered, his own smile slipping. “i mean, i know you got that job so you could save up for it yourself, but y’know, i’m your bro, wanted to do this for ya. and you can do the monthly payments if you really want to.”

Papyrus stared. Bit by bit, his browbone furrowed, and a few seconds later, it rose, before softening once again. He pressed his mouth together into a tight line, as if holding back a smile.

“THAT’S NOT WHY I GOT THE JOB.”

It took several seconds for the words to register in San’s brain. His smile returned to its neutral permanent grin. “what?”

“THAT’S NOT WHY I GOT THE JOB, SANS,” Papyrus repeated, allowing himself to smile at last. It looked a bit like how Sans imagined his own smile back in the apartment. Giddy, yet forcefully subdued. “I MEAN … I HOPED I COULD GET A CAR LIKE THIS EVENTUALLY, BUT … THAT’S NOT WHY I GOT THE JOB.”

Sans didn’t say anything. Papyrus’s smile grew wider still.

“I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU, TOO.”

Sans’s browbone furrowed. Papyrus giggled, and—giving the car one more loving glance—started back toward the apartment. Sans followed, still confused. As they reached the stairs, he managed a small laugh.

“what, did ya get me one of the really good ketchup brands i’ve been eying?”

“BETTER,” Papyrus replied.

“uh … a lifetime supply of really good ketchup?”

“IT’S NOT KETCHUP, SANS.”

But for once, Papyrus didn’t seem irritated by Sans’s obsession with condiments. He just strolled the rest of the way to their door and pulled it open, letting Sans walk in before following him.

“so … what is it?” Sans asked as Papyrus slipped past him and across the living room to his bedroom door.

Papyrus pulled it open, but looked over his shoulder to flash him a quick grin.

“IF I TOLD YOU, IT WOULDN’T BE MUCH OF A SURPRISE, NOW, WOULD IT?”

Sans didn’t even get a chance to think of a retort to his own words being thrown back in his face. Papyrus disappeared in his bedroom, and a few seconds later, came back out, pushing a large wrapped present in front of him. “Large” meaning “almost as tall as Papyrus himself.” Sans couldn’t tell how heavy it was—Papyrus was strong, after all—but he doubted it was a beanbag chair.

Papyrus stopped in the middle of the living room and shifted from foot to foot, grinning like he was five years old again, watching Sans with wide, eager eyes.

“OPEN IT.”

Sans raised one half of his browbone, but shrugged, stepped forward, and began to remove the paper. At first, he did it slowly, just to make Papyrus fidget more, but finally he gave in to his own curiosity and tore the rest of it off in one go.

Then he froze.

And he stared.

At the name on the top left corner of the side of the box. At the list of specs on one of the other sides.

Of the picture of a telescope right on the front.

Sans squeezed his sockets shut and opened them again. But the words didn’t change. The picture remained.

The telescope, almost as big as him, still sat right in front of him, as plain as could be.

“wha … this … bro, what, this …”

As Sans struggled to get out a single coherent word, Papyrus just stood there, beaming and giggling, his face brighter than the sun.

“SURPRISE!”

Sans kept staring, looking to the box, then back to Papyrus, then back and forth, again and again, hardly caring that he looked as silly as Papyrus had in the parking lot minutes before. He kept expecting it to disappear, just like everything disappeared, everything good in his life _always_ disappeared.

But it didn’t.

He shook his head. “papyrus, this is … where did you get this, this is a really good one, these are EXPENSIVE, they …”

Papyrus just smiled down at him, so soft, so bright, so loving. Happier than Sans had seen him since he got his license.

“IT TOOK LONGER THAN I HOPED. BUT … I GOT PAID AGAIN THIS WEEK, AND YOU NEVER LET ME PAY FOR ANY OF THE BILLS, SO I COULD SAVE IT ALL UP, AND …”

He cleared his throat and looked away, his smile a bit smaller when he finally glanced back.

“DID I GET THE RIGHT ONE?”

Sans let out a trembling breath, running a hand over his skull as he stared at the box. At the telescope. At _his_ telescope, a real one, not one he had found in the trash in the Underground, one that he could never get to focus right even if there had been something to focus on. A real, quality telescope. If he remembered the specs of this brand, he wasn’t going to see much more than this unless he went to an observatory.

“bro, that … that was YOUR money, you didn’t have to …” He trailed off, his eyes on Papyrus once more.

Papyrus smiled again. His giddiness had faded, his overwhelming joy turned to a gentle glow.

“YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO GET ME A CAR.”

“that’s different,” Sans muttered, almost on reflex.

“HOW?” Papyrus asked.

Sans paused. He glanced again at the telescope, his gaze soft. His brother had bought that. For _him._ And that alone made it ten times better than even the best telescope in the world would have been.

“you always talked about how you wanted a car,” he replied at last. “when did I ever talk about a telescope?”

But when he looked back up, Papyrus’s smile had tilted into something more knowing, and suddenly Sans found himself wondering how often that particular smile had been there.

“JUST BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T SAY IT DOESN’T MEAN I DIDN’T KNOW.”

Sans huffed a laugh, though it sounded more like a sob. His smile grew almost without him realizing it. He could feel the hint of tears growing within his sockets, the same tears that gleamed in the corner of Papyrus’s eyes.

He had barely lifted his arms up from his sides when Papyrus stepped forward and swept him into a hug.

After thousands of Papyrus-hugs, he would have thought that he would get used to them. That they would make his SOUL not quite as warm, that they would soothe them a little less. They never did. His SOUL glowed all the brighter in his chest, and he hugged his brother tighter still, clinging to the one part of his world that would always come back, no matter how many times he was snatched away.

Tomorrow, Papyrus would go back to his job, and Sans would go back to his. Papyrus’s manager would yell at him and the customers would insult him and his co-workers would pull nasty pranks. Sans would go from job to job, making ends meet, savoring his breaks and counting the minutes until he was off the clock. Humans would still hate them. And the kid could still reset anytime they wanted.

But maybe Papyrus’s manager would yell a little less, and his co-workers would smile a little more, and the customers would recognize how lucky they were to have him as their waiter. Maybe Sans would tell a few more jokes to his co-workers and customers, and maybe they would smile, just a little.

Maybe humans would adjust, a bit more.

Maybe the kid would keep their promise, no matter how many times they had broken it before.

But tonight, none of that mattered. Tonight, Papyrus would test-drive his new car, flying down the highway with the wind blowing over his skull and Sans at his side. Then they would take Sans’s new telescope out to the edge of town and spend two hours getting it set up only to find that the clouds had blocked all but one patch of stars, but that patch of stars was the best of them all.

And whether they woke up to a society that didn’t want them or a Snowdin behind the Barrier, they would be together. Through it all. Just like they had been from the beginning.

A tiny smirk curled the edges of Sans’s mouth, and he hugged Papyrus tighter.

Besides, he had quite a few breaks tomorrow. And it wouldn’t take a minute to slip into the manager’s office at the restaurant and put a whoopee cushion on his seat.


End file.
